sitemap.xml

A sitemap.xml is an XML file that lists the URLs of a website to help search engines discover and index content. It serves as a roadmap for crawlers, particularly for new, updated, or hard-to-find pages. While a sitemap does not guarantee indexing, it can improve the reach and speed with which pages are discovered and crawled.

The standard sitemap uses the sitemap protocol from sitemaps.org. The root element is urlset with the appropriate namespace. Each entry URL includes elements such as loc for the page URL, lastmod with the date of last modification, changefreq suggesting how often the page is updated, and priority indicating the relative importance of the URL. Sitemaps can also include metadata for images and videos, using elements like image:loc and video:content_loc. Languages and alternate versions can be represented with alternative links using xhtml:link rel="alternate" hreflang.

A site may publish a single sitemap at the root, for example https://example.com/sitemap.xml, or use a sitemap index file (sitemap_index.xml) to reference multiple sitemaps. Large or international sites often use separate sitemaps for images, videos, or news. Sitemaps can be generated automatically by content management systems or specialized tools, and submitted to search engines via webmaster tools such as Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools. A robots.txt file can also point crawlers to the sitemap location.

Important considerations include that search engines respect crawl budgets and a sitemap alone does not guarantee indexing. Common limits are up to 50,000 URLs per sitemap and up to 50 MB uncompressed per sitemap, with up to 1,000 sitemaps referenced in a sitemap index. Keep the sitemap up to date, avoid listing URLs blocked by robots.txt, ensure canonical URLs, and re-submit after significant changes.