Term · Search & content
XML sitemap
An XML sitemap is a machine-readable file — usually at /sitemap.xml — listing the URLs of a website that should be discovered and indexed by search engines. It can include the date each page was last modified and, for multilingual sites, links to language alternates.
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Explained
What it does
- Helps search engines discover pages, especially new ones and those with few internal links.
- Signals which URLs you consider canonical and important.
- Communicates when content changed, through
lastmod. - Declares language versions with
xhtml:linkalternates. See hreflang.
What to include
- Only canonical, indexable URLs returning status 200.
- Pages you want in search: services, products, categories, articles, key company pages.
What to exclude
- Redirects, 404 pages,
noindexpages. - Parameter and filter variants.
- Admin, cart, account and search result pages.
Maintenance
- Generate it automatically from the site's real pages.
- Use real modification dates in
lastmod, not the build date. - Split large sitemaps (each file has limits on URLs and size) and link them from a sitemap index.
- Reference it in robots.txt and submit it in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.
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FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Does a sitemap guarantee indexing?
No. It helps discovery; indexing depends on quality and other signals.
Is an HTML sitemap the same?
No. An HTML sitemap is a page for visitors; the XML sitemap is for search engines. Both can exist.