Summarize this Post using AI
XML Sitemaps In SEO plays a big role specifically in boosting your Technical SEO, as it acts as discovery for Search Crawlers to discover newly created web pages.
In this article, we will learn together how to make the most out of XML Sitemaps for better discovery for new important pages like : products, articles, news, new feature for SaaS and many other use-cases.
Before, stepping into our article if you need help with your XML Sitemaps, debugging it, assessment for any errors or any other issues, you can request my Technical SEO Audit Service for this purpose.
Optimize My SitemapsWhat Is An XML Sitemap File?
XML Sitemaps or XML Sitemap file refers to a file written a format called “Extensible Markup
Language”, which maps your webpages URLs in a format Search Engines can access and crawl. XML
Sitemaps, can include some tags called “Directives” or “Attributes”, Such as adding
<lastmod> tag to inform Search Crawlers or Bots with recent changes that
happened to this URL.
XML Sitemaps for Googlebot and other Search bots, they are more alike indexing hint rather than a crawling directive, which means XML Sitemaps facilitates the “Discovery Phase” in Search Engines, not fully control it.
Now, let’s move onto the next section to show-off some of XML Sitemaps In SEO Best practices to help your new webpages gets found faster and why you should not only rely on the website structure for new URLs discovery.
XML Sitemaps Best Practices For Better Technical SEO
When creating XML Sitemap files there are set of best practices you should or even must stick to as per Google Official Documentation on Search Central and as Per The W3C Markup Validation Service.
Include only valid and working URLs
XML Sitemaps for Googlebot and other Search Crawlers it’s a “Discovery” entry point and accordingly it’s highly recommended to include URLs which only are valid and working (200 Status OK). It’s not recommended to include URLs that redirects to another (301, 302, 307) redirects, broken URLs (Webpages with 404 Status code).
Having Sitemap Index File for Large Websites
It’s highly recommended for Large websites to have Sitemap index file, which is a Sitemap of Sitemaps. Sitemap Index file acts as parent Sitemap URL for child URLs (Other Sitemaps). For Example, if you have a large Ecommerce Store, it’s highly recommended to have Sitemap files of this pattern :
- sitemap-index.xml
- products-sitemap.xml
- product-categories.xml
- product-brands.xml
- searches-sitemap.xml (If search pages are allowed to be indexed in Search)
Organizing and breaking down your Sitemap Index file to include child and more page-types-specific sitemaps for each Content Groups you have.
Limiting records to 50,000 URLs in Each Sitemap File
While splitting your sitemaps is beneficial, you must adhere to the hard limits set by the
Sitemap protocol. A single XML Sitemap file is limited to 50,000 URLs or 50MB in size
(uncompressed). If your file exceeds this, Googlebot may fail to process it entirely.
If you
are approaching this limit, you must split your list into multiple sitemaps and wrap them in the
Sitemap Index File mentioned earlier. This ensures that the crawler does not
“time out” while trying to parse a massive file.
Include hreflang tags in your XML Sitemap Files
For websites targeting multiple regions or languages, implementation of Hreflang is critical.
While you can implement these tags in your HTML <head> or HTTP headers,
placing them in your XML Sitemap is often cleaner and keeps your page code lightweight.
By
mapping your localized versions in the sitemap, you provide Search Engines with a clear map of
which URL serves which audience without adding code bloat to the page itself.
Videos Sitemap Files (If you have a Video Content)
If your SaaS or Ecommerce site relies heavily on video demonstrations, a Video Sitemap is essential. This is an extension of the standard protocol that allows you to give Google specific details like the video thumbnail, title, description, and duration. This helps your videos appear in Google Video Search and potentially gain Rich Snippets in standard search results.
Having a News XML Sitemap File (If you are a Media or News Outlet)
For publishers, the “News Sitemap” is a unique requirement. Google specifically asks that News Sitemaps only contain URLs for articles published in the last 48 hours. Older articles should be dropped from the News Sitemap and remain in your general/standard sitemap. This keeps the news discovery channel fresh and tells Google exactly what is “breaking” right now.
Including your Images in XML Sitemap File
While Google is quite good at finding images, an Image Sitemap extension (or adding image tags to
your existing sitemap) is vital for images that are loaded via Javascript (often found in “Lazy
Loading” setups). By explicitly listing the image location (<image:loc>), you
ensure that your product photos or infographics are indexed even if a crawler doesn’t execute
the Javascript immediately.
Where To Place And Submit Your XML Sitemap?
Creating the file is only half the battle; you must ensure Search Crawlers know where to find it.
Add it to your Robots.txt
The first place a bot looks when visiting your site is the robots.txt file. You
should place a clean directive at the bottom of this file pointing to your
index:Sitemap: https://yourwebsite.com/sitemap_index.xml
Submit via Google Search Console
Do not wait for Google to find it. Log into Google Search Console (and Bing Webmaster Tools), navigate to the “Sitemaps” report, and submit your URL directly. This gives you immediate feedback on whether the file was processed successfully or if it contains syntax errors.
Dynamic vs. Static Sitemaps
For modern websites, especially Ecommerce and SaaS, you should avoid manually creating “Static”
sitemap files. Instead, rely on “Dynamic” sitemaps.
A dynamic sitemap is generated
automatically by your server or CMS plugin every time a user requests the file. This ensures
that the moment you publish a new product or remove an old blog post, your sitemap is instantly
updated to reflect the reality of your site, preventing 404 errors and speeding up the discovery
of new content.
Examples For XML Sitemaps In SEO And How Should It Look Like
To help you visualize the structure, here is a standard example of what a basic XML sitemap looks
like with a single URL entry. Notice the use of the <lastmod> attribute to
signal freshness.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
<url>
<loc>https://www.diab.digital/technical-seo-audit-service</loc>
<lastmod>2023-10-15</lastmod>
</url>
</urlset>If you are using a Sitemap Index file to group multiple sitemaps (as recommended for large sites), the syntax changes slightly to reference the child files:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<sitemapindex xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
<sitemap>
<loc>https://www.diab.digital/post-sitemap.xml</loc>
<lastmod>2023-11-01</lastmod>
</sitemap>
<sitemap>
<loc>https://www.diab.digital/page-sitemap.xml</loc>
<lastmod>2023-11-05</lastmod>
</sitemap>
</sitemapindex>Do XML Sitemaps are still relevant Technical SEO practice?
The short answer is: Absolutely. While Search Engines have evolved significantly in how they crawl the web, XML Sitemaps remain a fundamental communication channel between your website and the crawler. They are particularly vital for large websites with thousands of pages, or brand new websites that lack a strong internal linking structure or external backlinks. Without a sitemap, Google relies solely on following links; with a sitemap, you are explicitly handing them a roadmap, ensuring they don’t waste “Crawl Budget” guessing where your content lives.
How to validate my XML Sitemap or Sitemap Index File?
Before submitting your file, you need to ensure it is syntax-error-free. The most reliable method is using the Sitemaps Report in Google Search Console. Once submitted, Google will alert you to status errors (like 404s) or parsing issues. However, if you want to validate it before it goes live, you can use the W3C Feed Validation Service for syntax checks, or use a desktop crawler like Screaming Frog SEO Spider in “List Mode” to crawl the sitemap URLs and verify that every entry returns a 200 OK status code.
Which Sitemap format is more appropriate for Search Crawlers?
While Google and Bing support multiple formats—including RSS, Atom, and simple Text files
(.txt)—XML is the industry standard and the most appropriate format for
Technical SEO.
The reason is strictly functional: Text files can only provide a list of URLs
with no extra data. The XML protocol, however, is extensible. It allows you to include those
critical “Directives” and attributes we discussed, such as <lastmod> for
freshness, <xhtml:link> for hreflang, and specific extensions for images and
video. If you want full control over your discovery signals, stick to XML.
FAQs and their answers about XML Sitemaps
Below some of questions commonly asked by Technical SEOs and Web Developers about XML Sitemaps, we’ve collected these questions and their definitive answers to make it easy for you to know more about XML Sitemaps in SEO.
Where I should put my XML Sitemap file within Website files and folders?
XML Sitemap placement should be at the root-level or the top-level of your website files same as robots.txt file, which means XML Sitemap file or XML Sitemap Index file should be accessible in this way yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml or yourdomain.com/sitemap_index.xml.
How frequently should I Update my XML Sitemap File?
As mentioned above, XML Sitemaps by their nature should be automatically updated, unless you have a few pages and your update frequency for the content pages is low, thus Static XML Sitemaps as the go-to-solution.
Otherwise, dynamic XML Sitemaps automatically should modify lastmod tag as per the actually changes happened to the content, in order to reflect the changes in both : HTML source Code through Last Update timestamp and through XML Sitemap file.
