What Is a Sitemap?
A sitemap is a file that lists the URLs on your site you want search engines to know about, optionally with the date each was last changed.
Google defines it as “a file where you provide information about the pages, videos, and other files on your site, and the relationships between them” (Google sitemaps overview). A sitemap index is a sitemap of sitemaps: a file that lists other sitemap files so you can submit many at once. “Submitting” does not upload anything. In Google's words, it “means telling Google where to find the file on your site. You cannot actually upload a sitemap to Google” (Sitemaps report help).
Not every site needs one. Google says a site of “about 500 pages or fewer” that is well linked internally may not, while large sites, new sites with few external links and sites with a lot of video, image or news content are likely to benefit. Either way, Google is clear that a sitemap “doesn't guarantee that all the items in your sitemap will be crawled and indexed.” For what happens after submission, see how long Google takes to index a new page.
How to Submit a Sitemap at a Glance
| Step | Action | Expected result |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Check the sitemap is valid, within limits and publicly reachable | The URL returns HTTP 200 and lists only canonical URLs |
| 2 | Split large sitemaps and list them in a sitemap index | Every file is under 50,000 URLs and 50MB uncompressed |
| 3 | Add a Sitemap: line to robots.txt | Any crawler that reads robots.txt can find the sitemap |
| 4 | Add and verify the site in Google Search Console | A verified property where you are an owner |
| 5 | Submit the sitemap in the Sitemaps report | Status “Success” and a count of discovered pages |
| 6 | Add and verify the site in Bing Webmaster Tools, or import it from Search Console | A verified Bing site |
| 7 | Submit the sitemap in Bing Webmaster Tools | A processing status and URL count in Bing's Sitemaps page |
| 8 | Optional: set up IndexNow for added, changed and deleted URLs | HTTP 200 (or 202 on first use) for each notification |
Time: about an hour if the sitemap already exists (our estimate), longer if DNS verification is needed. Tools: a web browser, Google Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools, access to your site's files or CMS. Cost: none beyond your time. Skill level: beginner to intermediate; IndexNow without a plugin needs basic scripting.
What You Need Before Starting
- A sitemap file, usually generated by your CMS or a plugin, at a URL such as
https://example.com/sitemap.xml. - Access to edit robots.txt at the root of your domain.
- A Google account, and the ability to add a DNS record (for a Domain property) or upload a file or edit page HTML (for a URL-prefix property).
- An account to sign in to Bing Webmaster Tools.
- A list of the pages you actually want indexed, so the sitemap does not include pages you do not.
Step 1: Check That Your Sitemap Is Valid and Reachable
Open your sitemap URL in a browser and confirm it loads as XML, lists absolute URLs and contains only pages you want indexed. A sitemap that errors or lists the wrong URLs wastes the rest of the steps.
Requirements to check, from Google's Build and submit a sitemap and the sitemaps.org protocol:
- No more than 50,000 URLs and no larger than 50MB (52,428,800 bytes) uncompressed per file. Gzip compression is allowed, but the limit applies to the uncompressed file.
- UTF-8 encoding, with characters such as
&entity-escaped. - “Fully-qualified, absolute URLs”; Google says it “will attempt to crawl your URLs exactly as listed.”
- Location: Google recommends the site root, because a sitemap “posted at the site root can affect all files on the site.” A sitemap in a subfolder can only list URLs in that folder or below under the sitemaps.org protocol; Google lifts this for sitemaps submitted through Search Console.
- Only canonical URLs that return 200: no redirects, 404s or pages marked
noindex. lastmodset to the last significant change, or left out. Google ignorespriorityandchangefreq, and Bing says they “are ignored by Bing and do not influence how your content is crawled or ranked” (Bing Webmaster blog, July 2025).
A minimal valid sitemap:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
<url>
<loc>https://example.com/guide</loc>
<lastmod>2026-10-06</lastmod>
</url>
</urlset>How to verify: Google's Sitemaps help suggests inspecting the sitemap URL with the URL Inspection tool, running a live test and checking that Page fetch is “Successful”. Common mistake: the xmlns value begins with http://, not https://. Google says this is “working as intended” (Google Search Central blog).
Step 2: Split Large Sitemaps and List Them in a Sitemap Index
Create a sitemap index if any sitemap exceeds 50,000 URLs or 50MB, or if you want separate sitemaps by section. You then submit just the index.
Rules: a sitemap index may list up to 50,000 sitemaps and must itself stay under 50MB (sitemaps.org). Google adds that the listed sitemaps must be on the same site and “in the same directory as the sitemap index file, or lower in the site hierarchy”, and that you can submit up to 500 sitemap index files per site in Search Console (Google, Manage your sitemaps with a sitemap index file). Bing says it supports up to 50,000 child sitemaps in an index (Bing Webmaster blog).
<?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>
</sitemap>
<sitemap>
<loc>https://example.com/sitemap-posts.xml</loc>
</sitemap>
</sitemapindex>Expected result: one index URL that covers every sitemap. How to verify: open each child URL listed in the index and confirm it loads. Common mistake: listing child sitemaps hosted in a higher directory or on another domain, which Google rejects unless cross-site submission is set up.
Maximum count per file, site or request, read October 10, 2026
Source: sitemaps.org, Sitemaps XML format; Google Search Central, Manage your sitemaps with a sitemap index file; Search Console Help, Sitemaps report; IndexNow.org, Documentation.
Each sitemap and sitemap index must also stay under 50MB (52,428,800 bytes) uncompressed. Google says you may submit more than 1,000 sitemaps, but the report shows only 1,000.
Step 3: Add the Sitemap Line to robots.txt
Add a Sitemap: line with the full sitemap or sitemap index URL to the robots.txt file at the root of your site. This is the one method that works without any account, and it reaches crawlers that have no submission console.
User-agent: *
Disallow:
Sitemap: https://example.com/sitemap.xmlRules: Google says “Google, Bing, and other major search engines support the sitemap field in robots.txt”; the value “must be a fully qualified URL”; you can list several sitemaps; and the line “isn't tied to any specific user agent” (Google, How Google interprets the robots.txt specification). Bing's Sitemaps help gives the same directive. If you have a sitemap index, sitemaps.org says you can list just the index.
Expected result: https://yourdomain/robots.txt shows the line. How to verify: open robots.txt in a browser, and check the sitemap is not itself blocked by a Disallow rule. Common mistake: a relative path such as Sitemap: /sitemap.xml. Our report on whether AI crawlers read your sitemap found that the robots.txt line is the route Common Crawl documents for finding sitemaps.
Step 4: Add and Verify Your Site in Google Search Console
Add your site as a property in Google Search Console and verify that you own it. Google requires “owner permissions on a property to submit a sitemap using the Sitemaps report”; without them, Google says to use robots.txt instead (Sitemaps report help).
Process (Google, Add a website property): open the property selector and choose “Add property”, then pick a type. A Domain property (example.com) covers all subdomains and both http and https, and can be verified only by DNS record. A URL-prefix property (https://example.com/) covers only that exact prefix and supports several verification methods, such as an HTML file or meta tag.
Expected result: a verified property with you as owner. How to verify: the property appears in the selector and its reports load. Common mistake: adding http:// or the non-www version as a URL-prefix property when the site lives at https://www.. Google says the Sitemaps report “shows only sitemaps that are in the current property” and warns against confusing http/https or www/non-www properties. The same property also gives you the Performance report; what it does and does not show for AI features is covered in what Search Console shows for AI answers.
Step 5: Submit the Sitemap in Google's Sitemaps Report
Open the Sitemaps report in Search Console, paste the sitemap URL into the “Add a new sitemap” box and click Submit.
What happens next: Google says “the sitemap should be fetched immediately”, but crawling the listed URLs takes time, and “it is possible that not all URLs in a sitemap will be crawled, depending on the site size, activity, traffic, and so on.” A sitemap index appears with the type “Sitemap index”. The report shows at most 1,000 submitted sitemaps, though you may submit more.
Expected result: a row with status “Success”, a “Last read” date and a “Discovered pages” count. How to verify: if the status is not “Success”, click the row for the error details. Common mistake: resubmitting the same sitemap every day. Google says that once a sitemap has been read it is recrawled on its own schedule, and that resubmitting makes sense only after big changes.
Step 6: Add and Verify Your Site in Bing Webmaster Tools
Add your site to Bing Webmaster Tools, either by importing it from Google Search Console or by adding it manually (Bing, Add and verify site).
- Import from Google Search Console: you grant Bing access to your Search Console account; Bing lists your verified sites with their sitemaps, and the sites you import “get automatically verified”. Bing also says that when it periodically revalidates ownership, “any new sitemap found on your Search Console account will also be imported automatically”. Up to 100 sites can be imported at a time, with a limit of 1,000 sites per account.
- Add manually: enter the URL, then verify with one of Bing's methods: an XML file (
BingSiteAuth.xml) uploaded to the site root, a meta tag in the homepage<head>, a CNAME record in DNS, or automatic DNS verification where your DNS provider supports the Domain Connect standard.
Expected result: a verified site. Bing says it “usually takes 48 hours” to generate data for a newly added site. How to verify: the site appears in the site selector without a verification prompt. Common mistake: removing the verification file, meta tag or CNAME record after the site is verified; leave it in place.
Step 7: Submit the Sitemap in Bing Webmaster Tools
Open the Sitemaps tool in Bing Webmaster Tools, click “Submit sitemaps” and enter the sitemap URL. If you imported from Search Console, check first: the sitemap may already be listed.
Details from Bing's Sitemaps help: Bing accepts XML sitemaps, RSS 2.0, Atom 0.3 and 1.0, and plain-text files with one URL per line. The page lists sitemaps you submitted, imported from Search Console, or that Bing discovered by itself, with submitted dates, last processing date, processing status and the number of URLs discovered. Resubmission is one sitemap at a time.
Expected result: the sitemap listed with a processing status and URL count. How to verify: click the sitemap to see Bing's exact errors or warnings. Common mistake: submitting a sitemap for a different site than the one selected; Bing accepts sitemaps only for the selected site.
Step 8: Set Up IndexNow for Added, Changed and Deleted URLs (Optional)
Set up IndexNow if you want Bing and other participating search engines told about changes as they happen rather than when they next read your sitemap. It complements the sitemap; it does not replace it.
Check your platform first. IndexNow.org says many CMSs and SEO plugins support it, and lists Cloudflare as a CDN with native integration (IndexNow FAQ). If yours does, switching it on is the whole step.
Manual setup (IndexNow documentation):
- Generate a key of 8 to 128 characters using only a–z, A–Z, 0–9 and dashes.
- Host it as a UTF-8 text file named
{key}.txtat the root of your site, containing the key. - Send a request for each changed URL, or a JSON POST of up to 10,000 URLs, to one participating endpoint such as
https://api.indexnow.org/indexnow. Submissions are shared with all participating engines.
https://api.indexnow.org/indexnow?url=https%3A%2F%2Fexample.com%2Fguide&key=YOUR_KEYExpected result: HTTP 200, or 202 on first use while the key is checked. IndexNow notes that a 200 “only indicates that the search engine has received your URL”. How to verify: Bing says you can confirm receipt in Bing Webmaster Tools (Bing IndexNow guide). Common mistake: sending every URL on the site every day. The FAQ says IndexNow is for recent changes, not every URL at once (a full submission is acceptable after a migration), and that every submitted URL counts toward your crawl quota. Google is not among the endpoints IndexNow.org lists, so IndexNow does not replace Step 5.
How to Verify It Worked
- Google: the Sitemaps report shows “Success”, a recent “Last read” date and a “Discovered pages” count close to the number of URLs in the file. Google says the count includes all child sitemaps for an index and counts duplicates once.
- Google indexing: filter the Page indexing report by the sitemap to see how many submitted URLs are indexed. Google warns there is “no guarantee that a page URL discovered in a sitemap has been or will be crawled or indexed”. If many sit in “Discovered – currently not indexed”, follow our guide to fixing that status.
- Bing: the Sitemaps page shows a last processing date, a processing status and URLs discovered.
- robots.txt: fetching
/robots.txtshows theSitemap:line with an absolute URL. - IndexNow: each request returns 200 or 202.
On timing: Google's Gary Illyes presented a typical sitemap processing time of about a day at a Search Central Live event in October 2026, as reported by attendees (Google has not published these figures); we summarise those figures in how long Google takes to show a fix.
How to Choose a Submission Method
| Situation | Recommended method | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Any site with a sitemap | robots.txt Sitemap: line | Supported by Google, Bing and other major engines; no account needed |
| You want Google's error reports and indexing counts | Search Console Sitemaps report | Shows fetch status, errors and discovered pages |
| You are not an owner of the Search Console property | robots.txt line | Google requires owner permission to submit in the report |
| Site already verified in Search Console | Import into Bing Webmaster Tools | Auto-verifies and brings sitemaps across |
| Content changes often (news, products, prices) | Sitemap plus IndexNow | IndexNow notifies participating engines of each change |
| More than 50,000 URLs | Sitemap index | Per-file limit is 50,000 URLs or 50MB uncompressed |
| Old plugin still “pings” Google or Bing | Turn the ping off; rely on the methods above | Both endpoints are retired; Google says the requests do no harm but do nothing |
Common Problems and Fixes
| Problem | Likely cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Google shows “Couldn't fetch” | Wrong URL, error response, or the sitemap is blocked | Live-test the sitemap URL in URL Inspection; correct it and resubmit |
| Google shows “Has errors” | Parsing errors in some entries | Click the row for details; fix and resubmit. Google says URLs parsed without errors are still queued |
| “URL not allowed” error | Sitemap lists URLs on a higher level or another domain | Move the sitemap to the root, or split it by host |
| Google stops reading a sitemap | Repeated fetch failures; Google retries for a few days, then stops | Fix availability, then resubmit |
| Ping URL returns 404 or 410 | Endpoints retired (Google 2023, Bing 2022) | Use robots.txt, the two consoles and IndexNow |
| IndexNow returns 403 | Key file missing, or key not in the file | Check /{key}.txt loads and contains only the key |
| IndexNow returns 422 or 429 | URLs from another host, or too many requests | Submit only your host's URLs; send less often |
| Bing import lists fewer sites than Search Console | Sites already in Bing, or URLs normalized together | Bing documents both causes; add any missing site manually |
What Not to Do
- Do not rely on the ping URLs. Consequence: nothing happens. Correction: robots.txt, Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools and IndexNow.
- Do not list redirects, 404s or noindexed pages. Consequence: you ask search engines to crawl URLs you do not want indexed. Correction: list only canonical pages that return 200.
- Do not set every
lastmodto today. Consequence: Google says that if dates do not match reality, “eventually we're not going to believe you anymore”. Correction: update it only for significant changes. - Do not expect “Remove sitemap” to remove pages. Consequence: Google says removing a sitemap from the report does not stop it visiting the URLs. Correction: use
noindex, robots.txt or delete the pages. - Do not resubmit daily. Consequence: no benefit; Google recrawls known sitemaps on its own schedule. Correction: resubmit after big changes only.
- Do not treat a sitemap as an indexing guarantee. Consequence: misplaced expectations. Correction: work on internal links and page quality as well.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I still ping Google or Bing with my sitemap URL?
No. Google announced the deprecation of its sitemaps ping endpoint in June 2023, said it would stop functioning six months later, and says requests to it result in a 404 error. Bing removed anonymous sitemap submission in May 2022. When we requested both addresses on October 6, 2026, Google returned 404 and Bing returned 410.
Do I need to submit my sitemap to Bing if I already submitted it to Google?
Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools are separate. Bing picks up the sitemap if it is listed in robots.txt, and if you import your site into Bing Webmaster Tools from Search Console, Bing says it imports the sitemaps too.
How many URLs can one sitemap contain?
Up to 50,000 URLs, and no more than 50MB (52,428,800 bytes) uncompressed, under the sitemaps.org protocol that Google and Bing follow. Larger sites split their URLs across several sitemaps listed in a sitemap index.
How many sitemaps can a sitemap index list?
Up to 50,000 sitemaps per index file under sitemaps.org. Google also allows up to 500 sitemap index files per site in Search Console and requires listed sitemaps to sit in the same directory as the index or lower.
Does submitting a sitemap get my pages indexed?
Not by itself. Google calls a sitemap “merely a hint” and says it doesn't guarantee that listed items will be crawled and indexed. It helps search engines discover URLs; indexing depends on Google's own evaluation.
Do priority and changefreq tags matter?
Not to Google or Bing. Google says it ignores both values, and Bing says they are ignored and do not influence crawling or ranking. Accurate lastmod dates are the field both companies say they use.
Does Google support IndexNow?
Google is not among the participating search engines listed on indexnow.org as of October 2026. Use the Search Console Sitemaps report and the robots.txt line for Google.
Can I submit a sitemap without being an owner in Search Console?
Not through the Sitemaps report, which Google says requires owner permissions. Google's advice for non-owners is to list the sitemap in robots.txt instead.
Where should the sitemap file live?
Google recommends the site root, because a sitemap there can cover every URL on the site. Under the sitemaps.org protocol, a sitemap in a subfolder can only list URLs in that folder or below it; Google lifts this restriction for sitemaps submitted through Search Console.
Sources and Methodology
This guide is built from Google, Bing, sitemaps.org and IndexNow documentation, read on October 6, 2026. Bing's help pages were read in a browser because they load with JavaScript. The one hands-on check was an HTTP request to each search engine's former ping address on October 6, 2026 (Google: 404; Bing: 410). We did not submit a sitemap or set up IndexNow for this guide, and we did not measure how long either search engine takes to process a sitemap. The one-hour time estimate is ours. Interface labels can change; where documentation did not confirm a label, we describe the control instead.
- official Google Search Central, Build and submit a sitemap. Limits, location, submission methods,
lastmod. Read October 6, 2026. - official Google Search Central, Learn about sitemaps. Read October 6, 2026.
- official Google Search Central, Manage your sitemaps with a sitemap index file. Read October 6, 2026.
- official Google Search Console Help, Sitemaps report. Submission, statuses, owner requirement, resubmission, removal. Read October 6, 2026.
- official Google Search Console Help, Add a website property to Search Console. Read October 6, 2026.
- official Google Search Console Help, URL Inspection tool. Read October 6, 2026.
- official Google Search Console Help, Page indexing report. Read October 6, 2026.
- official Google Search Central, How Google interprets the robots.txt specification. Read October 6, 2026.
- official Gary Illyes, Google Search Central Blog, Sitemaps ping endpoint is going away, June 26, 2023. Read October 6, 2026.
- official sitemaps.org, Sitemaps XML format. Read October 6, 2026.
- official Bing Webmaster Tools Help, Sitemaps. Read October 6, 2026.
- official Bing Webmaster Tools Help, Add and Verify site. Read October 6, 2026.
- official Fabrice Canel and Krishna Madhavan, Bing Webmaster Blog, Keeping Content Discoverable with Sitemaps in AI Powered Search, July 31, 2025. Read October 6, 2026.
- official Bing Webmaster Blog, Spring cleaning: Removed Bing anonymous sitemap submission, May 13, 2022. Read October 6, 2026.
- official IndexNow.org, Documentation and FAQ. Read October 6, 2026.
- official Bing, How to add IndexNow to your website. Read October 6, 2026.