XML sitemaps: how to create and submit one

An XML sitemap lists the pages you want search engines to crawl. It does not guarantee indexing, but it helps them find pages, especially new and deep ones.

What to include

• Only canonical, indexable pages that return 200.
• Not redirects, 404s, noindex pages or duplicates.

Create one

Most platforms generate one automatically. For a small static site, use the XML sitemap generator.

Submit it

• Add a Sitemap: line to robots.txt.
• Submit it in the search engines' webmaster tools.

Example

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
  <url><loc>https://shop.demo.pepploweb.com/</loc></url>
  <url><loc>https://shop.demo.pepploweb.com/purifiers</loc></url>
</urlset>

Large sites

A single sitemap can list up to 50,000 URLs. Larger sites use a sitemap index that lists several sitemaps, for example one for products, one for blog posts and one for pages.

lastmod

The lastmod date tells search engines when a page last changed meaningfully. Only update it for real changes; if every page always shows today's date, search engines learn to ignore it.

Common problems

Sitemaps listing redirected, noindex or deleted pages; sitemaps on http:// when the site is on https://; and sitemaps that are not updated when new pages are published.

Keep it healthy

Check it regularly with the sitemap checker. Site audits also start crawling from your sitemap, so pages missing from it may be found only through links.