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Jarik Oosting
  • SEO
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All About XML Sitemaps

An XML sitemap is a digital overview of all the important pages on your website. It makes it easier for search engines to find and index your site. An XML sitemap tells search engines which pages are available for crawling, ensuring that your pages are discovered and indexed more quickly.

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The Importance of an XML Sitemap

Having an XML sitemap is highly recommended to improve your website’s indexing. Gary Illyes has stated on several occasions that an XML sitemap is the second most important source for discovering content on your website.

Better Indexing of Your Content

If you don’t have a sitemap, search engines have to crawl your site “blindly,” which can result in important pages being left out of the index. An XML sitemap ensures that search engines don’t overlook any important pages. An XML sitemap is especially indispensable for large websites or those with a complex structure.

Faster content indexing

An XML sitemap helps search engines discover new and updated content more quickly. Instead of having to visit all pages via your internal links, an XML sitemap helps search engines better identify what has been updated. This ensures that updated content is indexed by search engines more quickly.

The Different Types of XML Sitemaps

An XML sitemap isn’t just a sitemap for the pages on your website. There are different types of XML sitemaps. The four main types of sitemaps are:

These are the most common sitemaps, which contain the main pages of your website. They are essential for every website and include URLs to your main pages, blog posts, product pages, and more. This sitemap ensures that search engines understand your site’s structure and can find and index all important content.

Image sitemaps are crucial for websites with a significant amount of visual content. They help search engines find and index images on your site. This is especially important for sites where images play a central role, such as e-commerce sites, portfolios, or news websites.

If your website contains video content, a video sitemap is a must. This sitemap helps search engines find and index videos on your site. This is especially useful for improving the visibility of your videos in search engines and helps attract more traffic through video searches.

Google News sitemaps are crucial for websites that regularly publish news articles, such as news portals or blogs with frequent updates. These sitemaps ensure that news articles are indexed more quickly in Google News and other search results.

What does an XML sitemap look like?

An XML sitemap is technically quite simple in structure. It consists of a ` <` URL set, `> ` tags, which contain ` <` URL `> ` tags. These URL tags contain the URL (a ` <` loc `> ` tag) and any other information, such as a ` <` lastmod `> ` tag. An example of an XML sitemap:

The contents of an XML sitemap

An effective XML sitemap contains not only URLs, but also additional information such as:

  1. Lastmod tag: This tag indicates when the page was last updated. This helps search engines understand which pages have been recently modified.
  2. Page priority: Although this isn't necessary, this tag helps search engines understand which pages you consider most important.
  3. Changefreq tag: This tag indicates how often the page's content is likely to change.

Best Practices for XML Sitemaps

When creating or generating an XML sitemap, there are a number of best practices you should keep in mind:

  • Make sure to include all indexable pages in the XML sitemap.
  • The XML sitemap should only contain indexable pages, so do not include pages with a noindex tag or canonicalized pages.
  • The XML sitemap must be encoded in UTF-8.
  • The list should only include URLs with a 200 status code, so avoid redirects and pages that no longer work.
  • An XML sitemap can contain up to 50,000 URLs. Do you have more than that? If so, split it into multiple sitemaps.
  • Add a reference to the sitemap from your robots.txt file.
  • Submit your sitemap through Google Search Console.
  • Do you have multiple sitemaps? If so, create an XML sitemap that includes all your other XML sitemaps.

By following these best practices, search engines will crawl your website more effectively and index your content more quickly.

How do you create an XML sitemap?

Now that you know how an XML sitemap works and what you need to keep in mind, it’s time to create one. Most CMSs include an option to automatically generate an XML sitemap. These include systems such as Lightspeed, Shopify, Framer, and Craft CMS. However, you’ll often need to install a plugin or app—or, especially with custom-built systems, have an XML sitemap generated manually.

For WordPress users

If you use WordPress, there are several good WordPress plugins for creating an XML sitemap. Follow the steps below:

  • Install an SEO plugin, such as Yoast SEO, All in One SEO Pack, or RankMath.
  • Check the XML sitemap settings and configure them if necessary.
  • Make sure that all pages you don't want to appear in the index have a "noindex" tag.

For non-WordPress sites

Depending on the CMS you’re using, the sitemap may have already been generated automatically. If not, follow the steps below:

  • Create an XML sitemap manually, develop an XML sitemap generator, or use an online generator.
  • Add the sitemap to your website or to your server.
  • Add a link to your sitemap from the robots.txt file.

Submitting Your Sitemap to Search Engines

After you’ve created your XML sitemap, it’s important to submit it to search engines like Google. You can do this through Google Search Console. By submitting a sitemap, you give search engines insight into your site’s structure and ensure faster and better indexing of your content.

To submit your sitemap to Google Search Console, follow the steps below:

  1. Go to Google Search Console.
  2. Click “Sitemaps” in the left-hand menu.
  3. Enter the URL(s) of your sitemap and submit them.
  4. Google processes the XML sitemap; this takes anywhere from a few minutes to several days.
  5. A green message saying “Successful” will appear once Google has processed your sitemap.

Once you’ve submitted the URLs, there’s nothing else you need to do. When crawling your website, Google visits the sitemaps.

Frequently Asked Questions About XML Sitemaps

It’s a good idea to add an XML sitemap to your website, but it isn’t necessary for every website. Does your website have fewer than 500 pages? According to Google’s documentation, creating an XML sitemap isn’t necessary in that case. However, we still recommend adding an XML sitemap to help crawlers do their job more effectively.

An XML sitemap doesn’t directly improve your search visibility. It’s a way for crawlers to discover the content on your website and stay better informed about what has been updated. Because of the value they provide to crawlers, XML sitemaps are part of search engine optimization.

Have you added pages to your website? If so, it’s important that the new indexable pages are also included in the XML sitemap. Even if you use tags—such as the tag—it’s important to update the data.

Only indexable pages should be included in a sitemap. Pages with HTTP status codes 3xx, 4xx, and 5xx should therefore not be added to a sitemap.

An HTML sitemap is not the same as an XML sitemap. The purpose of an HTML sitemap is to create an overview page for users, while an XML sitemap is intended for crawlers.

It is recommended to create an XML sitemap for crawlers. John Mueller also notes that if an HTML sitemap is necessary, it’s a sign that your navigation structure isn’t sound. Our advice is therefore to ignore HTML sitemaps and instead focus on an XML sitemap and a well-structured website.

There are several tools available to check the validity of your XML sitemap. Google indicates the validity in Google Search Console, but you can also use an online XML sitemap validator.

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This article was written by Jarik Oosting

With a passion for SEO and an unmatched drive to achieve results, Jarik Oosting is the driving force behind SmartRanking. With more than 15 years of experience in the field, Jarik has built up a wealth of knowledge, ranging from technical SEO to complex migrations. As the founder of SmartRanking, he has assembled a team of like-minded SEO specialists who help companies achieve their online growth goals. He is also the author of the book *GEO – Being Visible in AI Answers*, which explores how companies can remain discoverable as AI search engines reshape the search landscape, and he is a frequent speaker.

His academic background in Information Science at the University of Groningen, with a specialization in Natural Language Processing, gives him a unique perspective on the world of SEO. For Jarik, it’s not just about search engine visibility, but about sharing knowledge and guiding companies toward sustainable online success.

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