What is an XML sitemap?

An XML sitemap is a file, usually at https://site.com/sitemap.xml, that lists the pages you want indexed as <url> entries. Each entry holds the URL and optionally its last-modified date (<lastmod>). Large sites group several sitemaps into a sitemap index file. A single sitemap can hold up to 50,000 URLs and 50 MB uncompressed.

#Why it matters

A sitemap helps search engines find new and updated pages faster. It's especially valuable for weakly linked pages, new sites and very large sites. It doesn't guarantee indexing; Google still judges each listed page on its quality.

#Where you see it in SEOAsist

Open the site from the Sites page and switch to the Indexing tab. In the Sitemaps card, enter the sitemap URL and click Submit; SEOAsist downloads and validates the file first, then submits it to Search Console. The table shows each sitemap's Status, URLs, Errors / Warnings and Submitted date, and you can Resubmit from the row. This card needs the site's Search Console property connected: Connect Google Search Console.

The Technical Audit crawl also discovers pages from sitemap.xml, sitemap_index.xml and the Sitemap: lines in robots.txt.

#Example

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
  <url>
    <loc>https://site.com/boiler-service</loc>
    <lastmod>2026-10-01</lastmod>
  </url>
</urlset>

#Common mistakes

• Listing URLs that redirect, return 404, are noindex or canonicalize to another page.
• Bumping <lastmod> on every page every day; Google stops trusting the signal.
• Building a sitemap but never declaring it in robots.txt or Search Console.