An XML sitemap is a file that lists all the important pages on your website in a format search engines can easily read. It acts as a roadmap helping search engines discover, crawl, and index your content more efficiently. While not mandatory, XML sitemaps are considered an SEO best practice.
What XML Sitemaps Contain
Each URL you want indexed is listed with a <loc> tag. <lastmod> shows when the page was last modified. <changefreq> suggests how often the page changes. <priority> indicates relative importance (0.0 to 1.0). Additional elements can include images, videos, and multilingual variations of pages.
Why XML Sitemaps Matter
They help search engines find all your pages, especially on large or new sites. Pages buried deep in your site structure are easier to discover. Sites with few internal links benefit from sitemaps. They’re particularly important for new websites without many backlinks. Sitemaps speed up the discovery of new or updated content.
When You Need a Sitemap
Large websites with hundreds or thousands of pages. New websites with few external links. Sites with pages not well-linked internally. Websites with rich media content. Frequently updated sites with new content. E-commerce sites with many product pages. However, even small sites can benefit from having one.
Creating XML Sitemaps
Many CMS platforms generate sitemaps automatically. Static site generators often have sitemap plugins. Online tools can crawl your site and generate sitemaps. For custom solutions, follow the XML sitemap protocol specifications. Split large sitemaps into multiple files with a sitemap index. Update sitemaps when adding or removing significant pages.
What to Include (and Exclude)
Include all pages you want search engines to index. Include canonical versions of pages, not duplicates. Exclude pages behind login walls or for specific users. Exclude pages blocked in robots.txt. Exclude duplicate content or pagination pages. Exclude thank-you pages and other conversion pages. Include important images and videos.
Submitting Your Sitemap
Submit sitemaps through Google Search Console. Add to Bing Webmaster Tools for Bing indexing. Reference your sitemap in robots.txt. Most search engines automatically check robots.txt for sitemaps. Resubmit when making significant site changes. Monitor for crawl errors in Search Console.
Sitemap Best Practices
Keep individual sitemaps under 50MB and 50,000 URLs. Use gzip compression for large sitemaps. Update the lastmod date when content changes. Use priority and changefreq conservatively, search engines may ignore if overused. Test sitemaps with validation tools before submitting. Monitor sitemap coverage in Search Console.
Common Sitemap Mistakes
Including URLs that return errors or redirects. Listing URLs blocked in robots.txt. Including non-canonical versions of pages. Forgetting to update sitemaps after site changes. Setting all pages to priority 1.0 (makes priority meaningless). Including irrelevant parameters or session IDs in URLs. Not compressing large sitemaps.