Sitemap (XML)
An XML file listing all pages on your site that you want search engines to know about. Submit it through Google Search Console to help Google discover and crawl your content.
Why It Matters
An XML sitemap is a roadmap for search engines. It lists every page you want indexed, along with metadata like when it was last modified and how frequently it changes. While Google can discover most pages through crawling links, a sitemap ensures nothing gets missed - especially on large sites or sites with poor internal linking.
Sitemaps are particularly important for new sites (few backlinks for discovery), large sites (too many pages for crawl budget), and sites with orphan pages (content not linked internally).
In Practice
Generate your sitemap automatically - most CMS platforms and static site generators do this. Submit it through Google Search Console and reference it in your robots.txt.
Only include pages you want indexed. Don't include pages with noindex tags, redirected URLs, or low-quality pages. A sitemap of 10,000 URLs where 8,000 are junk pages wastes crawl budget and sends negative quality signals.
Monitor your sitemap coverage in Search Console. It shows how many submitted URLs are actually indexed and which ones Google chose to exclude. This is one of the most valuable diagnostic reports available.
Related Terms
Glossary
Crawling
How search engine bots discover and download your pages - the first step to ranking.
Glossary
Indexing
Adding a crawled page to Google's database so it can appear in search results.
Glossary
Robots.txt
A file telling search engine crawlers which parts of your site they can access.
Glossary
Google Search Console (GSC)
Google's free tool showing how your site actually performs in search - essential data.
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