How to submit a sitemap to Google Search Console

A sitemap does not make Google index your pages. It makes sure Google knows about them, which on a new site with few links pointing in is the part that is missing.

The steps

1. Make sure the sitemap loads in a browser at its full URL, such as https://example.com/sitemap.xml.
2. In Search Console, open Indexing, then Sitemaps.
3. Enter the sitemap URL and choose Submit.
4. Add a line to robots.txt so other crawlers find it too.

# robots.txt
User-agent: *
Allow: /

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

What the statuses mean

When it says couldn't fetch

• Open the URL in a private window. It must return 200 and XML, not a redirect or an HTML error page.
• Check robots.txt does not block it.
• Check the URLs inside use the same host and protocol as the property.
• On a brand-new property, wait a day and check again; it often clears.

Several sitemaps

One sitemap can hold up to 50,000 URLs or 50MB uncompressed. Larger sites split them and submit a sitemap index that lists the parts. A small site needs one file. If you add a separate sitemap for images or a blog, submit each, or list them all in an index.

What goes in it

Only canonical URLs that return 200: no redirects, no pages marked noindex, and the same trailing slash form your canonicals use. A sitemap full of URLs that redirect sends mixed signals. We wrote about building one in a sitemap for a static site.

Individual pages can be pushed faster with Request indexing.

GA4 + Search Console Setup submits your sitemap in Search Console after verifying the site, in your own Chrome, and checks the sitemap loads before it does.