How to Submit a Sitemap to Google (in 4 Easy Steps)

Submitting a sitemap to Google will help the search engine crawl and index your pages. Which is good for your SEO.

In this guide we share:

Let’s dive in.

please note: If you want to learn more about sitemaps first, read our starters guide to website sitemaps.

How to submit a sitemap to Google

Google allows you to submit your sitemap directly in its free tool called Google Search Console (GSC), formerly known as Google Webmaster Tools.

please note: If you do not have a GSC account, you will need to create one. Read us guide to Google Search Console to learn how to set it up.

Here’s a step-by-step guide to submitting a sitemap:

Step 1: Sign in to Google Search Console

First, sign in to your Google Search Console account.

Then, in the upper left corner, select the website for which you want to submit a sitemap. (In case you have more than one property under the same account.)

Step 2: Go to the ‘sitemaps’ report

In the left sidebar menu you will see a “Site maps” reports in the “Indexing” section. Go there.

This is where you can manage all your sitemaps. It contains two main sections:

• “Add a new sitemap”
• “Submitted Sitemaps”

We focus on the first one.

Step 3: Find the URL of your sitemap

There are two basic types of sitemaps: XML sitemaps and HTML sitemaps. HTML sitemaps are not used for SEO purposes, so we will focus on an XML sitemap here.

Here are some effective ways to find your XML sitemap:

• Try the most common post. There is a good chance that your XML sitemap will be located at https://yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml.
• Use a search operator. If you search Google for “site:yourdomain.com filetype:xml,” you should find the location of your sitemap.
• Check your robots.txt file. Your robots.txt file (located at https://yourdomain.com/robots.txt) may contain a link to your sitemap.

If you do not have an XML sitemap, you will need to create one. Check out our guide how to create an XML sitemap.

Step 4: Add a new sitemap

Now you can add your sitemap to the “Add a new sitemap” section of the “sitemaps” report.

Just paste the URL and click “if.”

You will see a message confirming that your sitemap has been successfully submitted.

After a while, you will see your sitemap in the list of “If Sitemaps”. It contains information about when the sitemap was submitted, when it was last read, and how many pages Google discovered in it.

Most importantly, it will show you the status of your sitemap submission. A green “Success” status means there are no problems.

If you see a “Could Not Retrieve” or “Had Errors” status, you will need to follow the report’s suggestions on how to resolve the issues.

Jump to the “Sitemap Issues” section of this post to learn more about possible problems and how to detect them.

What should a sitemap contain?

You should use your sitemap to indicate important pages that search engines should index and show in their search results.

Here is the information your XML sitemap should contain:

• URLs you want indexed. There is no point in including pages that have a “noindex” tag, as you don’t want those pages to be indexed.
• The “lastmod” value. Include information about when the page was last updated.
• The “hreflang” value for local variants of the URLs. If your pages have localized versions, you can indicate them in the site map.

And here is some information you should not include in your sitemap:

• Non-canonical pages: If there are multiple (duplicate or near-duplicate) versions of the same page, include only the one that has a canonical tag.
• 3xx or 4xx pages: If a URL returns a 4xx status code (client error) or a 3xx status code (redirect), do not include it in your XML sitemap.
• The “changefreq” and “priority” values: Google ignores these values, so using them in your sitemap is a waste of time.

Here’s good news: If you’re using one of the well-known content management systems (CMSs) like WordPress, Wix, etc., for your website, or if you’ve generated your sitemap with a sitemap generatoryou probably don’t need to worry about any of these items.

Your CMS (or the generator you used) will likely adhere to these best practices and automatically include everything you need in your sitemap.

Further reading: How to Create a Sitemap for a WordPress Website

How to detect and resolve sitemap issues

To find and fix the most serious problems related to your sitemap, you can perform a technical SEO audit of your website. The of Semrush Website Audit Tool is a good place to start.

Start by creating a free Semrush account.

Once you’ve signed up, follow these steps:

1. Create a project in the “Projects” section
2. Go to Website audit and select your domain
3. Configure your audit settings in the “Site Audit Settings” window (follow this step by step setup guide if you are not sure about something)
4. Press the “Start site audit“-button

With a free account you can crawl up to 100 pages. Once the audit is complete, you’ll get an overview of your website’s health, detailed reports on various aspects, and – most importantly – a list of all the issues.

Go to the “Issues” tab and search for “sitemap.” A list of all the possible issues related to your sitemap will appear.

If your site has a problem, you can click on the link with the number of affected pages.

This will open a new report with a complete list of affected pages.

By pressing the “Why and how to fix it” link, you can see the detailed description of the problem and follow the instructions on how to fix it.

After you’ve resolved all the sitemap-related issues, you can run another audit to make sure everything is resolved.

please note: The Google Search Console “Sitemaps” report will also inform you if there are problems with the sitemap you submitted. Google’s guidelines include the complete error list which covers most of the issues that GSC can detect.

Common sitemap issues

Here are some common sitemap issues that the Website Audit Tool can detect:

• Site map not found. Your website does not have a sitemap, or the sitemap is not located in the expected location.
• Sitemap.xml not indicated in robots.txt. Your website’s robots.txt file does not indicate the location of the sitemap.xml file.
• Found wrong pages in a sitemap. Your sitemap contains URLs that are not supposed to be in a sitemap (eg redirects, non-canonical URLs, etc.)
• Sitemap has format errors. There are errors in the format of your sitemap file, such as missing XML tags.
• Sitemap files are too large. Your sitemap is too large and exceeds the size limits set by Google.

Further reading: How to perform a technical SEO audit

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need to submit a sitemap to Google?

No. Google’s bots will eventually crawl your website. Submitting a sitemap only speeds up the process.

However, uploading your sitemap to Google Search Console is still considered SEO best practice. Since it will only take you a few seconds, there’s no reason not to.

How can I remove my sitemap from Google?

Sometimes it’s just easier to remove the old sitemap and upload a new one. Especially if the site architecture has changed significantly. Or if the old sitemap has a lot of errors.

Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to remove a sitemap from Google:

1. Log in to you Google Search Console account
2. If you own multiple websites, select the website you want to remove the sitemap for in the upper left corner
3. Click “Site maps” under the “Indexing” section of the left sidebar menu
4. In the “If sitemaps” section, click the line with the sitemap you want to remove
5. Click on the ellipsis icon next in the upper right corner. Then click on “Remove sitemap.”
6. Confirm the removal by pressing the “Remove” button in the pop-up window that appears

Wait for Google to process your request.

Alternatively, you can just remove the sitemap file from your website. Google will finally stop check the file if it is unavailable for a longer period of time.

Can I use multiple sitemaps?

Yes. For example, you can use different sitemaps for different types of content (eg a sitemap for pages, a sitemap for posts, a sitemap for videos, etc.)

You will also need to use more sitemaps if your sitemap file is over 50MB (uncompressed) or contains more than 50,000 URLs. (Both are technical limitations for a single sitemap file set by Google.)

If you use multiple sitemaps, you must create a sitemap index file. A sitemap index is basically a sitemap that contains all your sitemaps. It contains the URLs of all your sitemaps.

Then you can follow the instructions in this guide and submit the sitemap index URL to Google Search Console the same way you would a regular sitemap.