XML Sitemap: What It Is and How to Create One

An XML sitemap is a file that lists the pages on your website you want search engines to find. It does not make Google rank you higher, but it helps new and updated pages get discovered and crawled sooner, especially on a new site or one with few links pointing to it. This guide explains what belongs in a sitemap, how to create one for WordPress, a hand-built site or an AI Website Builder site, and how to submit and check it.

1. What a sitemap does, and what it doesn't

Search engines find pages mainly by following links. A sitemap gives them a direct list, with the date each page last changed, so they don't have to rely on links alone.

A small site with good internal links can be crawled without one, but a sitemap costs nothing and gives you useful reports in Search Console, so every site should have one.

2. What goes in a sitemap

Include only pages you want to appear in search results:

• Canonical URLs only. One version of each page: the https:// address, with or without www, whichever your site actually uses.
• Pages that return 200. No redirects, no 404s, no pages marked noindex.
• Absolute URLs. https://www.example.in/about, not /about.

Leave out login pages, cart and checkout pages, internal search results, tag archives you don't want indexed, and any test or staging copy of the site.

3. WordPress: the easy route

WordPress (since version 5.5) creates a basic sitemap automatically at https://yourdomain.in/wp-sitemap.xml. You don't need to do anything to switch it on, as long as Settings → Reading → Search engine visibility is not ticked.

Most sites use an SEO plugin, which replaces the built-in sitemap with a more flexible one:

Plugin menu names change between versions; if you can't find the option, search the plugin's settings for "sitemap". Use one SEO plugin only: two plugins each producing a sitemap confuse both you and the crawlers.

If you are new to WordPress, our WordPress guide covers installing and managing plugins.

4. A hand-built or static site

For a site without a CMS, create a file called sitemap.xml in the site's root folder (public_html on shared hosting), next to your home page:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
  <url>
    <loc>https://www.example.in/</loc>
    <lastmod>2026-09-01</lastmod>
  </url>
  <url>
    <loc>https://www.example.in/services</loc>
    <lastmod>2026-08-20</lastmod>
  </url>
</urlset>

Rules for the file:

• Save it as UTF-8, and escape special characters in URLs: & becomes &.
• Use the YYYY-MM-DD date format for lastmod, and change it only when the page's content really changes.
• Leave out changefreq and priority. Google ignores both, so they add nothing.

You can upload the file with the File Manager or FTP. For a site with many pages, a crawler such as Screaming Frog SEO Spider can generate the file for you; check the result before you upload it, because a crawler lists every page it finds, including ones you may want to leave out.

5. Big sites: sitemap index files

One sitemap file can hold at most 50,000 URLs and 50 MB uncompressed. Larger sites split their URLs across several files and list them in a sitemap index:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<sitemapindex xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
  <sitemap>
    <loc>https://www.example.in/sitemap-pages.xml</loc>
  </sitemap>
  <sitemap>
    <loc>https://www.example.in/sitemap-products.xml</loc>
  </sitemap>
</sitemapindex>

You then submit only the index. This is what Yoast and Rank Math do at /sitemap_index.xml.

Google also supports extensions for images, videos and news articles, and hreflang entries for sites in several languages. Most small business sites don't need them; an SEO plugin adds images to its sitemaps automatically.

6. Tell search engines where it is

robots.txt. Add a line with the full address of your sitemap to the robots.txt file in your site's root folder. Search engines read this file first, so every crawler learns where the sitemap is:

Sitemap: https://www.example.in/sitemap.xml

Google Search Console.

Bing Webmaster Tools. Add your site (you can import it from Search Console), open Sitemaps and submit the same address. Bing's results also power several other search engines.

Google no longer accepts sitemap "ping" URLs, so old guides that tell you to ping Google after every change are out of date. Keep lastmod accurate and Google will re-read the sitemap on its own.

7. Checking and fixing problems

In Search Console, the Sitemaps report shows whether Google could read the file, and the Pages report shows which pages are indexed and why others aren't.

8. Sitemaps on Domain India

• Shared hosting (cPanel, DirectAdmin, Webuzo): a static sitemap.xml and robots.txt go in your site's root folder. WordPress can be installed with Softaculous, and the sitemap works as described in section 3.
• AI Website Builder: the sitemap and robots.txt are generated for you. After you publish, the editor's SEO & Analytics panel shows your sitemap URL with a Copy button for Search Console. See configure SEO for your website builder site.

For the rest of on-page SEO, including titles, canonical tags and Core Web Vitals, read our complete SEO guide.

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Ready to get your pages found? Read the complete SEO guide, compare cPanel hosting plans, or try the AI Website Builder, which creates the sitemap for you.