How to submit a sitemap to Google Search Console and Bing

A sitemap is a list of the pages on your site that you want search engines to know about. Submitting it takes ten minutes, and it's one of the first things we check on a new client's Search Console. A surprising number of small business sites never did it.

It won't get pages indexed by itself. Google calls a sitemap submission "merely a hint." It does help Google find new pages faster, and the Sitemaps report tells you when something's wrong.

Find your sitemap URL

Most platforms make one for you. Open these in your browser to check:

If you see a page of URLs or a list of smaller sitemaps, that's it. If you get a 404, check your SEO plugin's settings, or see our Next.js checklist if you're on a custom build.

Submit it to Google

1. Open Google Search Console and pick your property.
2. Go to Indexing, Sitemaps.
3. Type the sitemap URL into the Add a new sitemap box and click Submit.

Within a day or two the table should show Success and a count of discovered pages. If you use a sitemap index, submit the index and Google reads the sitemaps inside it.

Also add one line to your robots.txt file, anywhere in the file:

Sitemap: https://yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml

Google and Bing both read it, and it's how other crawlers find your sitemap without being told.

Submit it to Bing

Bing's index feeds Microsoft Copilot, so it's worth the extra five minutes.

1. Sign in to Bing Webmaster Tools.
2. If your site is in Google Search Console, choose the option to import it. Bing copies the verification and sitemaps over.
3. Otherwise, add the site, verify it, then go to Sitemaps and submit the URL.

Bing also supports IndexNow, a way for your site to notify search engines the moment a page changes. Many SEO plugins and CDNs can turn it on for you. While you're in Bing Webmaster Tools, the AI Performance report shows when Copilot cites your pages.

What the statuses mean

• Success. Google read the sitemap. It doesn't mean every URL in it is indexed; check the Page indexing report for that.
• Has errors. Google read it but found problems, such as invalid dates or URLs on a different domain. Click the sitemap to see the details.
• Couldn't fetch. Google couldn't download it. On new properties this sometimes clears on its own within a few days. If it doesn't, check that the URL loads in a browser, isn't blocked in robots.txt, returns a 200 status without redirecting, and serves XML rather than an HTML page.

Keep it clean

A sitemap should only list pages you want in search results. Google's rules and our own checks come down to this:

• Only indexable, canonical URLs that return a 200 status. No redirects, 404s or noindex pages. A messy sitemap is a common reason for discovered, currently not indexed pages.
• Accurate lastmod dates. Google uses them only when they're "consistently and verifiably" accurate. Update them when the content changes. A new copyright year doesn't count.
• Skip priority and changefreq. Google ignores both.
• Stay under the limits. 50,000 URLs or 50MB uncompressed per sitemap. Split anything larger.

There's no need to ping Google when your sitemap changes. Google retired its sitemap ping endpoint after announcing the change in June 2023. It rereads sitemaps it already knows about.

Where to start

Open your sitemap URL now, then check the Sitemaps report in Search Console. If there's nothing submitted, submit it and add the robots.txt line. Our Search Console guide covers the rest of the setup, and what is technical SEO covers the other basics. If you'd like it all checked at once, that's our Site Audit on the pricing page.