How to Submit Your Sitemap to Google (And Why It Matters)

Without a submitted sitemap, Google discovers your pages by following links — one page at a time, whenever it gets around to it. On a new site or a site that publishes content regularly, this can mean important pages take weeks or months to appear in search results.

Submitting your sitemap to Google Search Console is one of the fastest and most reliable things you can do to speed up indexing. It takes about five minutes. This guide shows you exactly how to do it — and explains what actually happens after you submit.

What Is an XML Sitemap?

An XML sitemap is a file on your website that lists all the pages you want Google to know about. Think of it as a table of contents for your site — instead of Google having to discover every page by following links, you hand it a complete list directly.

Sitemaps are written in XML format — a structured text format that both humans and machines can read. Here is what a basic sitemap entry looks like:

Each <url> entry contains the page address and optionally the last modification date. Modern sitemaps generated by SEO plugins include hundreds or thousands of these entries — one per page, post, or product.

Where is your sitemap?

For most websites, your sitemap is automatically generated at one of these locations:

• yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml — most common
• yourdomain.com/sitemap_index.xml — Yoast SEO default
• yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml.gz — compressed version

Visit these URLs in your browser now to confirm which one exists for your site. If none of them return a structured XML file, you need to create one first.

Why Submitting Matters — vs Letting Google Find Pages Itself

Google will eventually discover most of your pages on its own — by following links from other pages on your site and from external sites that link to you. So why bother submitting a sitemap?

Speed

Without a sitemap, new pages depend on Googlebot finding and following a link to them. For new websites with few inbound links, this can take weeks. With a submitted sitemap, Google knows about new pages as soon as you publish them and typically crawls them within hours to days.

Completeness

Googlebot does not always discover every page through link-following alone — especially pages that are not well-linked internally or that sit deep in your site structure. A sitemap guarantees Google knows every page exists, even if it has never crawled it.

Crawl priority signals

Sitemaps can include a <lastmod> tag showing when each page was last updated. Google uses this to prioritise recrawling recently updated content over stale, unchanged pages — helping your freshest content get re-indexed faster.

Indexing status visibility

After submitting, Google Search Console shows you exactly how many of your sitemap URLs have been discovered vs indexed. This gives you visibility into which pages Google is ignoring and why — invaluable diagnostic information you cannot get any other way.

How to Create a Sitemap

WordPress — Yoast SEO (free)

If you have Yoast SEO installed: go to Yoast SEO → Settings → XML Sitemaps → toggle on. Your sitemap is automatically generated at yourdomain.com/sitemap_index.xml. It updates automatically every time you publish or update content.

WordPress — Rank Math (free)

If you have Rank Math installed: Rank Math → Sitemap Settings → General Sitemap → turn on. Your sitemap appears at yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml. Like Yoast, it updates automatically.

Shopify

Shopify automatically generates a sitemap at yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml — no setup required. It includes all products, collections, pages, and blog posts.

Squarespace

Squarespace generates a sitemap automatically at yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml. No configuration required.

Wix

Wix generates a sitemap automatically. Access it at yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml. Wix also has a built-in SEO setup wizard that helps you submit it to Google.

Custom / Next.js / other frameworks

If you are running a custom site, you need to either generate a sitemap programmatically or use an online sitemap generator. Tools like xml-sitemaps.com can crawl your site and generate a sitemap file you can upload to your server. Next.js has a built-in sitemap.ts file convention in the App Router that automatically generates a sitemap from your route structure.

How to Submit Your Sitemap to Google Search Console

Before you can submit a sitemap, you need a verified property in Google Search Console. If you have not set that up yet, see our guide → How to Connect Google Search Console to Any Website in 5 Minutes

Once your property is verified:

1. Log into search.google.com/search-console
2. Select your website property from the top-left dropdown
3. In the left sidebar, click Sitemaps (under the Indexing section)
4. In the "Add a new sitemap" field, enter your sitemap URL — just the path after your domain, for example: sitemap.xml or sitemap_index.xml
5. Click Submit
6. The sitemap will appear in the "Submitted sitemaps" table below with a status indicator

Success means Google has read your sitemap file. It does not mean all your pages are indexed yet — only that Google now knows about them.

What Happens After Submission

Immediately after submitting

Google reads your sitemap file and adds all listed URLs to its crawl queue. This does not happen instantly — Googlebot prioritises crawling based on many factors including your site's authority, how recently pages were updated, and Googlebot's overall crawl schedule.

Within 24–72 hours

Your GSC Sitemaps report will update to show how many URLs were discovered. You will see two numbers: URLs discovered (Google knows about them) and URLs indexed (Google has crawled and indexed them). The gap between these numbers shows how many pages Google knows about but has not yet indexed.

Ongoing

Google re-reads your sitemap periodically on its own — typically every few days. If you add or update pages frequently, you can manually request a re-read by clicking on your submitted sitemap in GSC and using the "Test" or resubmit option.

When pages are not getting indexed

If pages appear in your sitemap but are not being indexed by Google, this is important diagnostic information — not a submission problem. Common reasons include: thin or duplicate content, pages blocked by robots.txt, pages returning non-200 status codes, or pages with a noindex tag. Use GSC's Coverage report to understand why specific URLs are not being indexed.

See how to read and act on your GSC reports in our guide → How to Use Google Search Console to Find Quick SEO Wins

FAQ

Do I need to resubmit my sitemap every time I publish new content?

No. Once submitted, Google periodically re-reads your sitemap automatically. However, if you want Google to discover new content faster, you can ping Google directly by visiting your sitemap URL in a browser — this sometimes accelerates the process. Some SEO plugins also ping Google automatically when you publish.

I submitted my sitemap but pages are still not indexed after two weeks. Why?

Submission guarantees Google knows your pages exist — not that it will index them. Pages may not be indexed due to thin content, duplicate content, blocked crawling, low authority, or crawl budget limits. Use GSC Coverage report to identify the specific reason for each non-indexed URL.

Should I include every page in my sitemap?

Include every page you want Google to index. Exclude pages you do not want indexed: admin pages, login pages, thank-you pages, duplicate URL variations, and any page with a noindex meta tag. Google does not penalise you for a large sitemap, but submitting pages you do not want indexed wastes crawl budget and can confuse Google about your site structure.

Can I have multiple sitemaps?

Yes. Large sites often have a sitemap index file that points to multiple individual sitemaps — one for blog posts, one for products, one for pages. You submit the sitemap index URL and Google reads all referenced sitemaps automatically. A single sitemap can contain up to 50,000 URLs and must be under 50MB.

Does submitting a sitemap help with local SEO?

Yes. Local businesses with location pages, service area pages, or a blog should submit a sitemap to help Google discover and index all those pages — particularly useful for multi-location businesses where each location has its own page.

Conclusion

Submitting your sitemap to Google Search Console is one of the highest-leverage, lowest-effort things you can do for your site's SEO. It takes five minutes and ensures Google always has a complete, up-to-date picture of every page on your site — instead of relying on incomplete link-following to discover your content.

Do it once, and then revisit your GSC Sitemaps report monthly to monitor how many of your pages are being indexed and to catch any coverage issues early.

If your pages are in your sitemap but still not showing up in Google, the problem is indexability — not submission. Run a technical audit to diagnose why specific pages are being ignored.