sitemap.xml Guide

A sitemap.xml file is a discovery file. It tells search engines which public URLs you want them to know about. It is not a ranking guarantee and it does not automatically make low-quality or blocked pages indexable.

Good sitemap habits

• List canonical public URLs only.
• Use one host consistently: either www or non-www.
• Avoid visible index.html URLs when the canonical page is the folder URL.
• Remove deleted, redirected, noindex, private, login-only, staging, or blocked URLs.
• Use lastmod only when a page meaningfully changed.
• Reference the sitemap from robots.txt and submit it in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.

Common sitemap problems

Mixed hosts, duplicate trailing-slash versions, redirected URLs, old pages, noindex pages, and mechanically updated lastmod dates can make the sitemap less trustworthy as a discovery aid.