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XML sitemap

An XML sitemap is a file that lists the URLs of pages a site wants search engines to find, with optional details such as when each page last changed.

How it works

Googlebot, Google’s crawler, finds pages mostly by following links. A sitemap hands it the list directly, which helps large catalogues, new sites with few outside links and pages nothing links to. Google says a site of about 500 pages or fewer with thorough internal linking may not need one.

Each entry holds the full URL and may hold <lastmod>, the date of the last significant change. Google uses <lastmod> only when it is consistently accurate, and ignores <priority> and <changefreq>. One file takes up to 50,000 URLs or 50 MB uncompressed. A longer list must be split, and a sitemap index file can list the parts. You submit the sitemap in Search Console or name it in robots.txt.

A store lists the canonical product and category pages it wants in results: not sort orders, tracking parameters or filter combinations it doesn’t want shown. A sitemap is only a weak canonical signal, and naming one URL there and another in rel="canonical" mixes the signals. Why listed product pages can stay unindexed: product pages not indexed.

Where you see it

  • Search Console → Sitemaps report: when Googlebot last read each file, and processing errors.

Example

Example store, not client data.

The tableware shop has 3,000 products and 40 categories, so its sitemap lists 3,041 URLs including the home page: one file is enough. Its 6,400 filter pages stay out. A price change updates that page’s <lastmod>; a new copyright year in the footer doesn’t. At 60,000 products the list grows to 60,041 URLs and must be split into two files.

Not to be confused with

  • Feed — also a structured file, but it carries product data such as price and stock to Merchant Center. A sitemap carries URLs to search.
  • Indexing — Google’s decision to keep a page for results. A sitemap helps Google find a page, not keep it.

Right and wrong readings

  • Wrong: “Everything in the sitemap will be indexed.” Right: Google calls a submitted sitemap a hint and doesn’t guarantee its pages will be crawled or indexed.
  • Wrong: “Priority 1.0 makes Google crawl bestsellers first.” Right: Google ignores <priority>.

Sources