An XML sitemap is a list of the important pages on your website, written for search engines. It helps Google discover pages, especially on new sites or large sites.
What to include
- Pages you want to appear in Google.
- Only the canonical version of each page.
- Pages that load correctly (no redirects or errors).
What to leave out
- Thank-you pages, login pages, cart and checkout.
- Pages with noindex tags.
- Duplicate or filtered URLs.
How to create one
- WordPress: SEO plugins and WordPress itself generate sitemaps automatically.
- Shopify: creates one at /sitemap.xml automatically.
- Custom sites: use our sitemap generator or a build script.
Submit it to Google
- Open Google Search Console.
- Go to Sitemaps.
- Enter your sitemap URL and submit.
- Check back for errors and the number of discovered pages.
Add it to robots.txt
Add a line like Sitemap: https://www.example.com/sitemap.xml; our robots.txt generator includes it.
A sitemap is not a guarantee
Google still decides what to index based on quality. A sitemap helps discovery, not ranking.
Read how to get pages indexed.
Want the full picture? This article is part of SEO: the complete guide, our in-depth guide with everything in one place.
