sitemap.xml is an XML file listing every URL on a site that search engines should crawl, along with metadata (last modified date, change frequency, priority). The file is placed at /sitemap.xml and declared in robots.txt via a Sitemap directive. Sitemaps make discoverability efficient and reduce the chance crawlers miss important pages.
Each <url> entry contains <loc> (the URL), <lastmod> (last modified date), <changefreq> (always, hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, never), and <priority> (0.0 to 1.0). Maximum 50,000 URLs per sitemap file; use sitemap index files for larger sites.
Standard: /sitemap.xml. WordPress with Yoast or Rank Math: /sitemap_index.xml. WordPress 5.5+ core: /wp-sitemap.xml. Some custom setups use /sitemap-index.xml or /sitemap1.xml. Whatever the location, declare it in robots.txt with a Sitemap directive.
Submit the sitemap URL to Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools. The Readiness Check automatically detects sitemap locations across the common patterns.
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