XML Sitemap Guide

1. What is an XML sitemap?

An XML sitemap is a file that lists the URLs on your website that you want search engines to crawl and index. It helps search engines discover pages that might be hard to find through internal linking alone.

• Especially useful for new sites, large sites, or sites with deep content
• Helps search engines discover pages faster
• Provides metadata: last modification date, change frequency, priority
• Not a guarantee of indexing — it is a hint, not a directive

2. Sitemap format & syntax

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
  <url>
    <loc>https://example.com/</loc>
    <lastmod>2026-03-15</lastmod>
    <changefreq>weekly</changefreq>
    <priority>1.0</priority>
  </url>
  <url>
    <loc>https://example.com/about</loc>
    <lastmod>2026-01-10</lastmod>
    <changefreq>monthly</changefreq>
    <priority>0.8</priority>
  </url>
</urlset>

• loc: The full URL (required, must be absolute)
• lastmod: Last modification date in W3C format (optional but recommended)
• changefreq: How often the page changes (optional, mostly ignored by Google)
• priority: Relative priority 0.0-1.0 (optional, mostly ignored by Google)

3. Sitemap index files

A single sitemap can contain up to 50,000 URLs and must be under 50MB (uncompressed). For larger sites, use a sitemap index file.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<sitemapindex xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
  <sitemap>
    <loc>https://example.com/sitemap-pages.xml</loc>
    <lastmod>2026-03-15</lastmod>
  </sitemap>
  <sitemap>
    <loc>https://example.com/sitemap-blog.xml</loc>
    <lastmod>2026-03-20</lastmod>
  </sitemap>
</sitemapindex>

4. What to include (and exclude)

Include

• All pages you want indexed
• Canonical URLs only (not duplicates or parameterized versions)
• Pages that return 200 status codes

Exclude

• Pages with noindex tags
• Redirect URLs (3xx)
• Error pages (4xx, 5xx)
• Non-canonical URLs
• Login-required or gated pages
• URL parameter variations

5. Using lastmod correctly

The lastmod tag is the most useful signal in your sitemap, but only if it is accurate.

• Only update lastmod when the page content meaningfully changes
• Do not set all pages to today's date — Google will learn to ignore your lastmod values
• Use the actual content modification date from your CMS or database
• Format: YYYY-MM-DD or full W3C datetime

6. Submitting your sitemap

1. Add a Sitemap directive to your robots.txt
2. Submit via Google Search Console (Sitemaps section)
3. Submit via Bing Webmaster Tools
4. Ping Google: https://www.google.com/ping?sitemap=URL

7. Common mistakes

• Stale sitemaps that never get updated
• Including URLs that return 404 or redirect
• Using relative URLs instead of absolute
• Exceeding the 50,000 URL or 50MB limit
• Not gzipping large sitemaps (use sitemap.xml.gz)
• Mismatched protocols (HTTP sitemap on HTTPS site)