What is a Sitemap?

Learn what sitemaps are, why you need one, and how to submit them to search engines for better indexing.

What is a Sitemap?

A sitemap is a page usually available on your website that acts as a collection of all pages on your site. It serves to inform search engines about page existence and modification dates.

Sitemaps are typically in XML format and can be accessed by browsing to the sitemap.xml file at a domain's root. They assist Google, Bing, and other search engines in discovering and indexing new pages. Fresh content improves search rankings and market share capture.

Alternative formats include HTML, syndication feeds, and TXT files.

Sitemap Submission Methods

Three approaches exist for notifying search engines of your sitemap:

Submit directly through search engine consoles
Specify the sitemap location in the robots.txt file
Send HTTP requests to search engines

Important note: Google deprecated sitemap ping functionality in June 2023, with the endpoint returning 404 errors.

Do You Need a Sitemap?

Yes, you need a sitemap. While Google and Bing indicate sitemaps aren't required for smaller sites, research from 83 websites showed that implementing sitemaps increased indexing by 101% compared to sites without them.

Technical Requirements

According to protocol standards, sitemap index files must:

Begin and end with opening/closing <sitemapindex> tags
Include <sitemap> entries for each sitemap
Contain <loc> child entries

WordPress 6.5 now includes the lastmod parameter natively in generated sitemaps.