Fix Guide

How to Create and Submit an XML Sitemap

List your important URLs in a sitemap so Google can discover and crawl them efficiently.

Easy Medium Impact 15 min

Why It Matters

A sitemap is a map of your important URLs with last-modified dates. It is especially valuable for new sites with few backlinks and for large sites where pages might otherwise go undiscovered.

How to Fix

Generate the sitemap

List canonical URLs with <lastmod>. Exclude noindex, redirected, and duplicate URLs.

Reference and submit it

Link it in robots.txt and submit the URL in Google Search Console → Sitemaps.

Code Fix

xml

Before (broken)

<!-- no sitemap.xml -->

After (fixed)

<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
  <url>
    <loc>https://example.com/</loc>
    <lastmod>2026-05-26</lastmod>
  </url>
</urlset>

Platform-Specific Instructions

WordPress

Yoast/Rank Math auto-generate a sitemap at /sitemap_index.xml. Submit that URL in Search Console.

Next.js

Add app/sitemap.ts returning your routes; Next serves it at /sitemap.xml.

Check with our tool

XML Sitemap Generator

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