XML sitemap

An XML sitemap is a file, usually at /sitemap.xml, in which a website lists the URLs it wants to appear in search results. It helps search engines find new pages and notice changes, but for Google it is a hint, not a promise that every listed page will be crawled or indexed.

How the publishers in our marketplace provide their sitemap

In our measurement on 11 November 2026 we fetched /sitemap.xml and the robots.txt of 2,087 active publisher domains from the Linkbroker marketplace catalogue, and 1,914 of them answered. 78.3% serve a sitemap at /sitemap.xml. If you add the sitemaps that the robots.txt points to, 89.1% have a sitemap that a crawler can find.

The gap between the two numbers shows that not every sitemap lives at /sitemap.xml. 55.1% of the homepages show traces of WordPress, which has placed its built-in sitemap at /wp-sitemap.xml since version 5.5, while many SEO plugins use /sitemap_index.xml. That is exactly what the Sitemap line in the robots.txt is for: 73.5% of the robots.txt files in our measurement contain it, so every crawler finds the file without guessing.

Our own sitemap on linkbroker.io lists 146 URLs, every one with a lastmod date, and 92 of them with hreflang links to their version in the other language. It contains no changefreq or priority values, because Google ignores them (as of 12 November 2026). One entry looks like this:

<url>

<loc>https://www.linkbroker.io/de</loc>

<lastmod>2026-11-11T09:10:06.889Z</lastmod>

<xhtml:link rel="alternate" hreflang="de-DE" href="https://www.linkbroker.io/de"/>

<xhtml:link rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href="https://www.linkbroker.io/en"/>

<xhtml:link rel="alternate" hreflang="x-default" href="https://www.linkbroker.io/en"/>

</url>

Do you need an XML sitemap?

Google names three cases in which a sitemap helps most: large websites where not every page is reliably linked internally, new websites with few external links, and websites with a lot of video, images or news. Small websites with about 500 pages or fewer that are well linked internally often do fine without one (Google Search Central). In practice almost every content management system creates a sitemap automatically, so the question is less whether you have one and more whether it is clean.

What an XML sitemap contains

• urlset: the frame of the file, with the namespace of the sitemap protocol.
• url and loc: one entry per page with the full, absolute URL of the canonical version.
• lastmod: the date of the last significant change. Google uses it only if it is consistently and verifiably accurate.
• changefreq and priority: Google ignores both, so you can leave them out.
• xhtml:link with hreflang: optional for multilingual websites, to connect the language versions of a page in one central place.

A single sitemap may contain up to 50,000 URLs and be up to 50 MB uncompressed, encoded in UTF-8. Larger websites split it into several files and combine them in a sitemap index. There are extensions for images, videos and news.

Keep lastmod honest

A common mistake is a lastmod date that changes every time a page is saved or the site is deployed. Google counts new or changed main content, structured data or links as a significant change, but not a new copyright year in the footer. If the date is not reliable, Google ignores it. The same applies on the page itself: Google's guidance on helpful content names a new date without new content as a warning sign, which is why this page shows the date of its last real revision.

What belongs in the sitemap

• In: canonical URLs that return status 200 and should appear in search.
• Out: redirected URLs, pages that return 404, pages with noindex, parameter variants and anything robots.txt blocks.

Contradictions make a sitemap less useful. A URL that is listed in the sitemap but set to noindex, or whose canonical points to another page, sends two signals that cancel each other out. A clean URL structure keeps the list short and consistent.

How to create and submit an XML sitemap

1. Create it: most content management systems and shop systems generate the sitemap automatically. Open it in your browser and check that it loads and contains only the URLs you want.
2. Submit it in Google Search Console: enter the URL in the Sitemaps report. It then shows whether Google could read the file and how many URLs it found.
3. List it in robots.txt: a line starting with Sitemap: and the full URL lets other search engines and crawlers find the file as well.

Ideally the sitemap sits in the root directory. Without a submission in Search Console, a sitemap only covers the URLs below its own folder. Once Google knows the file, it fetches it again regularly on its own, and the old ping endpoint for sitemaps no longer works.

XML sitemap vs HTML sitemap

An XML sitemap is written for machines and lists URLs with technical details. An HTML sitemap is an ordinary page for visitors that links to the important areas of a website, like a table of contents. It can help people and crawlers reach deep pages, but it does not replace the XML file. Our glossary overview works this way: one page that links to every entry, sorted from A to Z. Whether Google then adds a page it found to its index is a separate step, explained under indexing.

Conclusion

An XML sitemap is quick to set up and is standard on most websites. What makes the difference is maintenance: only indexable URLs, an honest lastmod and a reference in robots.txt. Whether Google then ranks a page depends on its content and on links from other sites, which is where link building comes in.

Frequently asked questions

How do I find my XML sitemap?

Try yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml first, then look for a line starting with Sitemap: in yourdomain.com/robots.txt. WordPress sites often use /wp-sitemap.xml or /sitemap_index.xml.

Do I have to resubmit my sitemap after every change?

No. After the first submission Google fetches the file again regularly on its own. Resubmitting is only worth it after a site move or when the address of the sitemap changes.

Can I ping Google about a new sitemap?

No, Google has switched off its ping endpoint for sitemaps. Use the Sitemaps report in Search Console and the Sitemap line in your robots.txt instead.

Does an XML sitemap improve rankings?

Not directly. It helps Google discover and recrawl your pages, but whether they rank depends on their content, internal links and links from other websites.

Related terms: Indexing · llms.txt · Duplicate content · Backlink