Sitemap

Create and submit an XML sitemap

Search engines may not discover all your pages through links alone—a sitemap ensures every important page gets indexed, especially for large or newly launched sites.

Quick Reference

• XML sitemaps help search engines discover all your pages
• Include priority and lastmod for important pages
• Submit to Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools
• Reference sitemap in robots.txt

Check

Verify that this website has a valid XML sitemap accessible at /sitemap.xml and that it's properly formatted.

Fix

Generate or update the XML sitemap for this website including all important pages with proper priority and changefreq values.

Explain

Explain how XML sitemaps help search engines discover and index website pages more efficiently.

Code Review

Review metadata generation, rendered HTML, structured data, and response headers related to Create and submit an XML sitemap. Flag exact routes or templates where search-facing output violates the rule, and describe how to verify the final page output.

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For full implementation details, code examples, and framework-specific guidance, see references/rule.md.

Rule page: https://frontendchecklist.io/en/rules/seo/sitemap

Create and submit an XML sitemap

An XML sitemap is available at /sitemap.xml and includes all important pages.

Priority: high · Difficulty: beginner · Time: 15 min

--- XML sitemaps help search engines discover and index all your pages.

Code Example

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
  <url>
    <loc>https://example.com/</loc>
    <lastmod>2024-01-15</lastmod>
    <changefreq>weekly</changefreq>
    <priority>1.0</priority>
  </url>
  <url>
    <loc>https://example.com/about</loc>
    <lastmod>2024-01-10</lastmod>
    <changefreq>monthly</changefreq>
    <priority>0.8</priority>
  </url>
</urlset>

Why It Matters

Search engines may not discover all your pages through links alone—a sitemap ensures every important page gets indexed, especially for large or newly launched sites.

Sitemap Elements

Next.js Dynamic Sitemap

// app/sitemap.ts

  const baseUrl = 'https://example.com'

  // Static pages
  const staticPages = [
    '',
    '/about',
    '/contact',
    '/pricing',
  ].map(route => ({
    url: `${baseUrl}${route}`,
    lastModified: new Date(),
    changeFrequency: 'monthly' as const,
    priority: route === '' ? 1.0 : 0.8,
  }))

  // Dynamic pages from database
  const products = await getProducts()
  const productPages = products.map(product => ({
    url: `${baseUrl}/products/${product.slug}`,
    lastModified: product.updatedAt,
    changeFrequency: 'weekly' as const,
    priority: 0.7,
  }))

  // Blog posts
  const posts = await getPosts()
  const blogPages = posts.map(post => ({
    url: `${baseUrl}/blog/${post.slug}`,
    lastModified: post.updatedAt,
    changeFrequency: 'monthly' as const,
    priority: 0.6,
  }))

  return [...staticPages, ...productPages, ...blogPages]
}

Large Sites: Sitemap Index

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<sitemapindex xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
  <sitemap>
    <loc>https://example.com/sitemap-pages.xml</loc>
    <lastmod>2024-01-15</lastmod>
  </sitemap>
  <sitemap>
    <loc>https://example.com/sitemap-products.xml</loc>
    <lastmod>2024-01-14</lastmod>
  </sitemap>
  <sitemap>
    <loc>https://example.com/sitemap-blog.xml</loc>
    <lastmod>2024-01-13</lastmod>
  </sitemap>
</sitemapindex>

// app/sitemap.ts - Multiple sitemaps

  const productCount = await getProductCount()
  const numSitemaps = Math.ceil(productCount / 50000)

  return Array.from({ length: numSitemaps }, (_, i) => ({ id: i }))
}

  id,
}: {
  id: number
}): Promise ({
    url: `https://example.com/products/${product.slug}`,
    lastModified: product.updatedAt,
  }))
}

Priority Guidelines

Reference in robots.txt

User-agent: *
Allow: /

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

Image Sitemap Extension

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9"
        xmlns:image="http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap-image/1.1">
  <url>
    <loc>https://example.com/products/widget</loc>
    <image:image>
      <image:loc>https://example.com/images/widget.jpg</image:loc>
      <image:title>Widget Product Photo</image:title>
    </image:image>
    <image:image>
      <image:loc>https://example.com/images/widget-side.jpg</image:loc>
      <image:title>Widget Side View</image:title>
    </image:image>
  </url>
</urlset>

Submit to Search Engines

# Google Search Console
# 1. Go to https://search.google.com/search-console
# 2. Select property
# 3. Sitemaps → Add new sitemap
# 4. Enter: sitemap.xml

# Bing Webmaster Tools
# 1. Go to https://www.bing.com/webmasters
# 2. Submit sitemap URL

# Programmatic submission (ping)
curl "https://www.google.com/ping?sitemap=https://example.com/sitemap.xml"
curl "https://www.bing.com/ping?sitemap=https://example.com/sitemap.xml"

What NOT to Include

Exceptions

• Staging, utility, login, account, or internal search pages may intentionally use different crawl or index signals if they are not meant to rank.
• Temporary migration states can produce noisy intermediate signals; flag the live production URL pattern, not one-off transition artifacts.
• When redirects, canonicals, robots directives, or indexability signals conflict, fix the strongest final signal first instead of reporting every downstream symptom as a separate blocker.

Verification

Automated Checks

• Validate XML format with online validators
• Check Google Search Console sitemap status

Manual Checks

• Access sitemap at yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml
• Verify all important pages are included
• Ensure URLs match canonical-url versions