Create an XML sitemap
<loc> and <lastmod>; it has publicly stated that it ignores <changefreq> and <priority> entirely.| Tag | Required? | Does Google use it? |
|---|---|---|
<urlset> | Yes, as the root | Structural |
<url> | Yes, one per entry | Structural |
<loc> | Yes | Yes — must be a full absolute URL |
<lastmod> | No | Yes, if it is accurate and consistent |
<changefreq> | No | No — ignored |
<priority> | No | No — ignored |
<xhtml:link rel="alternate"> | No | Yes, for hreflang |
<image:image> | No | Yes, for image discovery |
<video:video> | No | Yes, for video indexing |
| Limit | Value |
|---|---|
| URLs per sitemap file | 50,000 |
| Uncompressed file size | 50 MB |
| Sitemaps per index file | 50,000 |
| Nesting depth of sitemap indexes | One level — an index may not point at another index |
| Encoding | UTF-8, with URLs entity-escaped |
| Compression | gzip permitted; the 50 MB limit applies to the uncompressed size |
Every URL must be absolute, on the same host as the sitemap, and entity-escaped — an ampersand in a query string becomes &. The lastmod value must be a W3C datetime, so 2026-09-10 or 2026-09-10T14:30:00+05:30.
Structure of a two-URL sitemap
Root element <urlset> with the namespace http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9
One <url> block per page
Inside each: <loc> with the full URL and optionally <lastmod>
That is the whole protocol. Anything more elaborate is optional and mostly ignored.
noindex, is blocked in robots.txt, or canonicalises to a different URL. Each of these is a reported error in Search Console and dilutes trust in the file.Sitemap: line to robots.txt pointing at the absolute URL. Every major crawler reads it, and it requires no account anywhere."Discovered" in the Sitemaps report means Google has read the file and found that many URLs — it is not a count of indexed pages. The gap between discovered and indexed is the number that matters, and a large gap almost always points at content quality or crawl budget rather than at a sitemap defect. If URLs land in "Discovered — currently not indexed" and stay there with no crawl date, Google has decided they are not worth fetching yet, and submitting the sitemap again will not change that.
A single sitemap file is capped at 50,000 URLs and 50 MB uncompressed. Larger sites split into multiple files and list them in a sitemap index, which itself may reference up to 50,000 sitemaps.
No. Google has stated publicly that it ignores both. Only loc and lastmod carry weight, and lastmod only when it is consistently accurate.
At the root of the domain, typically /sitemap.xml, and reference it with a Sitemap: line in robots.txt. A sitemap can only contain URLs at or below its own directory level, so a root location keeps things simple.
No. Google retired the anonymous sitemap ping endpoint in 2023. Listing the sitemap in robots.txt and submitting it once in Search Console is enough; Google recrawls the file on its own schedule. For Bing and Yandex, IndexNow gives faster notification.
Not by itself. A sitemap helps discovery, but indexing is a separate quality decision. If pages sit in "Discovered — currently not indexed", the sitemap is working and the content or the crawl budget is the constraint.
Everything on this page runs in your browser — nothing you type is uploaded or stored.
Short, exact answers to the questions people ask alongside this tool — the number first, then the working.
For teams, not just visitors
We build the calculators on SnoopTool as embeddable widgets in your branding, wired to your own lead form — the same maths, your colours, your domain, your leads. Tell us which one and we will send back a working demo you can put in front of your team.
Thanks — we have it, and you will get a reply from a person within one business day. Meanwhile every tool on SnoopTool stays free, with no signup.