What is a sitemap?
A sitemap is a file, usually sitemap.xml at the root of your site, that lists the URLs you want search engines to find, with an optional date each one last changed. It helps a crawler discover pages. It does not get a page indexed or ranked: Google calls submitting one "merely a hint". On 4 sites I run, 476 URLs were listed, and all 476 of them answered 200 on 9 November 2026. What decided which ones Google showed was everything else.
What goes in one
The format is a short XML list. Each page gets a <url> entry with its address in <loc>, and optionally the date it last
changed in <lastmod>:
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
<url>
<loc>https://example.com/pricing/</loc>
<lastmod>2026-11-09</lastmod>
</url>
</urlset>One file can hold up to 50,000 URLs and 50 MB uncompressed. Past that, you split the list into several files and list those in a sitemap index file. Google's limits are on its "Build and submit a sitemap" page (read 9 November 2026), and the protocol itself is published at sitemaps.org.
List only the version of each page you want in search: the canonical address, with no redirects, no pages that return an error, and no pages marked noindex. Bing's webmaster guidelines say the same, and say to take deleted and redirected URLs out.
What Google and Bing do with each tag
| Tag | Bing | |
|---|---|---|
| <loc> | Required. The page address. | Required. The page address. |
| <lastmod> | Used only when it is consistently and verifiably accurate | Asked for, as a freshness signal. If every date is today's, Bing says it may not trust them. |
| <changefreq> | Ignored | Ignored |
| <priority> | Ignored | Ignored |
Read on each company's own documentation and the Bing Webmaster blog, 9 November 2026.
So the only tag beyond the address that can do anything is lastmod, and only if it is true. A lastmod should change when the main content, structured data or links on the page change. A new copyright year in the footer doesn't count.
Do you need one?
Google says you might not, if your site is small (about 500 pages or fewer that you want in search) and every page is linked from somewhere else on the site. You probably do if the site is large, new with few links from other sites, or full of video, images or news.
Since a sitemap is cheap to make and every common platform can generate one, my advice is to have one anyway, and keep it honest. A wrong sitemap is worse than none: it points crawlers at pages you don't want and trains them to distrust your dates.
How to tell search engines where it is
- robots.txt: add a line such as Sitemap: https://example.com/sitemap.xml. Google and Bing both read it, and it can go anywhere in the file.
- Google Search Console: the Sitemaps report, which also shows when Google last read the file.
- Bing Webmaster Tools: Submit sitemaps. Bing can also import the sitemaps you submitted to Google.
- IndexNow, for changes: a ping that a URL was added, changed or deleted. Bing says it reads sitemaps about once a day and recommends IndexNow on top, and the IndexNow site says to use both. Amazon, Bing, Naver, Seznam, Yandex and Yep take part.
In Check Engine's August 2026 study of 98 large, well-known sites (a hand-picked list, not a random sample), 79 had a Sitemap line in robots.txt.
What four real sitemaps showed
I read the sitemaps of 4 sites I run on 9 November 2026, then requested every URL in them.
| Total | |
|---|---|
| URLs listed | 476 |
| Answered 200 (no redirect, no error) | 476 |
| Had a lastmod date | 476 |
| Carried a priority tag | 448 |
| Carried a changefreq tag | 205 |
| Sites with a Sitemap line in robots.txt | 4 of 4 |
Three things stood out.
Most of the tags do nothing. 448 priority tags and 205 changefreq tags, and Google and Bing ignore every one. They are harmless, but they are noise. Our own generators added them by default.
One site dated every page today. All 105 URLs on one of the sites carried the same lastmod, 2026-11-09, because a sitewide wording change that day touched every page. The dates were true, but a list where every page changed on the same day looks exactly like a generator stamping today's date on everything, which is the pattern Bing says makes it distrust lastmod. If a change to the page's furniture touches every page, it is better not to move the date of pages whose main content didn't change.
Listed is not indexed, and indexed is not shown. Of the URLs on two of these sitemaps, Google reported 205 of 256 as "Submitted and indexed" when I asked its URL Inspection API on 9 November 2026. Being in the index did not mean being seen: 203 of the 254 pages on those two sites had fewer than 10 Google impressions in the 28 days to 7 November 2026, because few people search for what they cover or a stronger page outranks them. The sitemap did its one job, which is getting pages found.
What Check Engine checks in a sitemap
Check Engine reads your robots.txt for declared sitemaps, falls back to /sitemap.xml, and then checks the list against the pages it crawled. The findings it can report:
- No XML sitemap found, or a declared sitemap that is unreachable.
- Sitemap URLs that are broken, or that redirect instead of serving a page.
- Sitemap URLs with the site's address written twice, a generator bug that produces addresses nobody can reach.
- Noindex pages listed in the sitemap, which asks a search engine to index a page you told it not to.
- Indexable pages missing from the sitemap.
- Sitemap URLs it could not check, reported as a limit of the check rather than a fault, because a server that refuses a crawler may still serve Google.
It does not grade your lastmod dates or flag a missing robots.txt Sitemap line. Those you can read by eye in a minute.
Other kinds of sitemap
- Image sitemaps list images Google might not find on its own, up to 1,000 per page.
- Video sitemaps add details about videos hosted on your pages.
- News sitemaps are for Google News publishers, and list only articles from the last two days.
- hreflang in a sitemap: for sites in several languages, each URL lists every language version, itself included.
- An HTML sitemap is a page of links for people. It is a different thing, and search engines treat it as an ordinary page.
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Related
- AI crawlers and sitemaps
- Sitemap URLs flagged as broken? Check before you regenerate
- Index coverage
- Canonical tags are a hint, not an instruction
Common questions
Does a sitemap help SEO?
It helps search engines find your pages, which matters most for new sites and pages with few links to them. It does not improve rankings, and Google says submitting one is only a hint, not a guarantee that pages are crawled or indexed.
Do I need a sitemap for a small website?
Google says a site of about 500 pages or fewer, with every page linked from somewhere on the site, might not need one. It is still worth having, because it costs nothing and helps Bing and other engines too.
How often should I update my sitemap?
Whenever pages are added, removed or change in a meaningful way. Most platforms regenerate it automatically. Keep lastmod true: change it when the page's main content changes, not on every rebuild.
Does Google use priority and changefreq?
No. Google's documentation says it ignores both. Bing ignores them too. Only the URL and an accurate lastmod are used.