How to submit a sitemap and get pages found by search engines

Search engines find pages by following links and by reading sitemaps. A clean sitemap and a verified Search Console property are the two steps that matter most for a new or updated site.

1. Make sure a sitemap exists

A sitemap is an XML file that lists the pages you want indexed, usually at /sitemap.xml or /wp-sitemap.xml. WordPress creates one by default, and SEO plugins can replace it with their own. A single sitemap file can list up to 50,000 URLs and be up to 50 MB uncompressed; larger sites use a sitemap index that points to several files.

List only pages you want people to find: real content pages that return a normal 200 response. Leave out redirected pages, error pages, internal search results and thin duplicate pages.

2. Point to it from robots.txt

Add one line to your robots.txt file: Sitemap: https://www.example.com/sitemap.xml. Any crawler that reads robots.txt will then find it without you doing anything else.

3. Verify the site in Google Search Console

Add your site as a property and verify ownership, ideally as a domain property through DNS so it covers every subdomain. Then open Sitemaps, enter the sitemap address and press Submit. The report shows when Google last read it and how many URLs it discovered. Google's old "ping" address for sitemaps was retired in 2023, so Search Console and robots.txt are the supported routes.

4. Ask for a single important page to be inspected

For one new or changed page, paste its address into the URL Inspection tool and choose Request indexing. This is meant for a few pages, not for bulk use. Submitting a page does not guarantee that it will be indexed or where it will rank; Google decides based on quality and usefulness.

5. Add IndexNow for other search engines

IndexNow is an open protocol that lets a site tell participating engines, such as Bing, Yandex, Seznam and Naver, that a page was added, changed or removed. You host a small key file on your site and send the changed addresses. Google does not currently use IndexNow, so keep the sitemap and Search Console steps in place. Many WordPress SEO plugins can send IndexNow notices automatically when you publish.

6. Check what happened

• In Search Console, open Pages and read the reasons pages are not indexed. "Crawled, currently not indexed" usually points to content quality; "Blocked by robots.txt" is a settings problem.
• Search for site:yourdomain.com to see roughly what is indexed.
• Link to new pages from existing ones. Internal links are the most reliable way to help crawlers reach them.