Module 2 · 2.2
English
Submitting sitemaps and reading the status
Module 2: Search Console, Bing and IndexNow · Reading time: 10 minutes
Learning objective: After this lesson you can submit a sitemap in Google Search Console and read its status in the Sitemaps report. You will also know what "discovered" does and doesn't mean.
Key concepts: sitemap, sitemap address, Sitemaps report, status Success, Couldn't fetch, Has errors, discovered pages, sitemap index, resubmitting, ping (discontinued), Sitemap: in robots.txt
What a sitemap does
A sitemap is a file listing the addresses of the pages you want in search engines. It is usually sitemap.xml in the root folder of your site. A search engine mainly finds pages by following links (lesson 1.2). The sitemap is an extra list that says: "these pages exist, and this is when they were last changed". You'll learn what such a file looks like and which addresses belong in it in lesson 3.4. This lesson covers the next step: telling Google where the sitemap is, and reading what Google did with it.
A sitemap is not an order. Google's own help says that not every address in a sitemap will necessarily be crawled. That depends on things like the size and activity of the site. And crawled doesn't mean indexed. A sitemap helps most with new sites that have few links from elsewhere, with large sites, and with pages buried deep in your site.
Where do you find your sitemap?
Many website builders create the sitemap for you:
| System | Usual address |
|---|---|
| WordPress (version 5.5 and later, without a plugin) | https://www.example.com/wp-sitemap.xml |
| WordPress with an SEO plugin | often https://www.example.com/sitemap_index.xml (see the plugin settings) |
| The WebOké AI Builder | https://www.example.com/sitemap.xml |
| Other website builders | see their help pages; often /sitemap.xml |
Not sure? Open https://www.example.com/robots.txt in your browser. If there's a Sitemap: line with an address, that's your sitemap. The AI Builder adds that line automatically, and so does WordPress.
Open the sitemap address in your browser. If you see a list of addresses (or a list of other sitemaps), it works. If you get an error page, fix that first.
Submitting in Search Console
- Open your property in Search Console and choose Sitemaps in the menu (under Indexing).
- Under Add a new sitemap, enter the address of the sitemap. If the start of the address is already filled in, type only the rest, for example
sitemap.xml. - Click Submit.
You need owner permissions on the property to do this. Google recommends testing the address live with URL inspection first (lesson 2.4), so you know for sure that Google can fetch the file.
A sitemap index is a sitemap that points to other sitemaps, for example one for pages and one for posts. WordPress creates an index like this. You then submit only the index; Google fetches the rest itself.
Reading the status
After you submit it, the sitemap appears in the table of submitted sitemaps. For each sitemap you see the type, the date submitted, the last time Google read it (Last read), the status and the number of discovered pages (and videos).
| Status | Meaning | What do you do? |
|---|---|---|
| Success | The sitemap was fetched and processed without errors | Nothing. Later, check the Pages report to see how many are indexed |
| Has errors (in the overview: Sitemap has X errors) | Fetched, but part of it couldn't be read. The valid addresses are still queued for crawling | Open the sitemap, read the errors, fix them |
| Couldn't fetch | Google couldn't fetch the file | Check the address, the status code (must be 200), robots.txt (does it block the sitemap?) and whether the server was reachable |
A newly submitted sitemap sometimes shows "Couldn't fetch" at first even though the file works fine: Google simply hasn't tried yet. Wait a day before you start investigating.
Discovered is not indexed
The number of discovered pages is how many addresses Google read from the sitemap (duplicate addresses count once). It doesn't tell you that those pages have been crawled or indexed. To see how many addresses from your sitemap are in the index, open the sitemap and choose See page indexing. This takes you to the Page indexing report, filtered on that sitemap (lesson 2.4). There you can see which pages aren't indexed and why.
Resubmit? Usually not
Once a sitemap has been processed successfully, Google fetches it again on its own schedule. So you don't need to resubmit it after every new page. After a big change (a new site, a new structure) you can resubmit it as a request. If fetching failed, Google keeps trying for a few days and then stops: fix the problem and then resubmit.
In the past you could nudge Google via a "ping" address. Google discontinued this in 2023; the address now returns an error. Plugins or old scripts that still ping no longer do anything. Two methods remain: submitting in Search Console, and a Sitemap: line in your robots.txt. Do both: the line in robots.txt helps other search engines too, and submitting gives you the report.
Note: the Sitemaps report only shows sitemaps you submitted through the report (or the API). A sitemap Google only knows from robots.txt won't appear there, even though Google does use it.
In practice: the AI Builder and WordPress
Every time you publish, the AI Builder creates a new sitemap.xml with all pages and the date each page was last changed, and adds the Sitemap: line to robots.txt. If a site in the AI Builder is set to "do not index", robots.txt blocks everything instead, so submitting is pointless. In WordPress, the core creates the sitemap; an SEO plugin often replaces it with its own sitemap, and that's the one you submit (you'll find it in the plugin settings). Other website builders work in a similar way: look up the sitemap address and submit it.
Summary
- A sitemap is a list of addresses you want in the index; Google uses it as a hint, not as an order.
- Look up the address (often in robots.txt), open it in your browser, and submit it via Sitemaps in Search Console.
- Success, Has errors or Couldn't fetch: only the last two need work.
- Discovered pages are not the same as indexed pages; you see those in the Page indexing report.
- You only need to resubmit after big changes or a failed attempt; pinging no longer works.
Quiz
Exercise
Exercise D2.2: Submit a sitemap and note the result. Look up your site's sitemap address (in robots.txt or in your website builder), open it in your browser, and submit it via Sitemaps in Search Console. Come back after a few days and note the status, the number of discovered pages and how many of them are indexed according to the Page indexing report. Explain the difference.
Exercise D2.2: Submit a sitemap and note the result
No site or business of your own? Work it out on paper or skip this exercise; only the exam counts towards the certificate.
Example: https://www.example.com/sitemap.xml, Success, 24 discovered, 19 indexed. Five new pages are still listed as discovered but not indexed; they do belong in the index, so I'm linking to them from the homepage and waiting.
Your ticks and notes only stay in this browser; we don't send them anywhere. If you're signed in, we only save in My courses that you've done the exercise.
Further reading
The steps in these articles apply to the WebOké panels; other providers work in a similar way.
- Submitting your website to search engines (Google and Bing)
- Google, Manage your sitemaps using the Sitemaps report: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/7451001?hl=nl
- Google Search Central, Build and submit a sitemap: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/sitemaps/build-sitemap
- Google Search Central Blog, deprecation of the sitemap ping (June 2023): https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2023/06/sitemaps-lastmod-ping