Fix Guide

How to Add an XML Sitemap

Publish a list of the URLs you want discovered, and tell search engines where it is.

Easy Medium Impact 30 min

A missing XML sitemap does not stop a site being indexed, but it removes the fastest route to discovery — which matters most for large sites and for pages few internal links point at. The sitemap should list only canonical, indexable URLs; including redirects or noindex pages weakens the signal it carries.

Why It Matters

Around half of audited sites have no sitemap. It is also a diagnostic: Search Console reports how many submitted URLs were indexed, which is the clearest available answer to "is Google actually taking these pages".

How to Fix

Generate it from real data

Build the list from your actual published content so it cannot drift. A hand-maintained sitemap is out of date within a month.

Include only indexable canonicals

No redirects, no noindex pages, no parameter variants. Every entry should be a URL you want indexed exactly as written.

Split it if it is large

50,000 URLs or 50 MB per file. Beyond that use a sitemap index pointing at several files.

Advertise and submit it

Add a Sitemap: line to robots.txt and submit it in Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.

Code Fix

xml

Before (broken)

GET /sitemap.xml -> 404

After (fixed)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
  <url>
    <loc>https://example.com/</loc>
    <lastmod>2026-09-03</lastmod>
  </url>
</urlset>

Platform-Specific Instructions

WordPress

WordPress generates one at /wp-sitemap.xml; most SEO plugins replace it with their own. Do not leave both live.

Next.js

app/sitemap.ts generates it. Read the URL list from your content source rather than hardcoding it.

Fixed that one.
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