XML Sitemaps: Does Your Blog Need One, and How to Submit It

Google says a site of about 500 pages or fewer, with every important page reachable through links from the home page, might not need an XML sitemap, so many small blogs can do without one. Most blogging platforms make one anyway, and a sitemap helps most when a blog is new, has few links from other sites or relies on images and video. Here is what a sitemap is, how to find and check yours, how to submit it in Google Search Console and what it will not do.

What an XML sitemap is

A sitemap is a file that lists the pages, and optionally the images, videos and other files, that you want search engines to know about. Google says search engines read it "to crawl your site more efficiently" (Google: Learn about sitemaps). XML is the most versatile format; Google also accepts RSS and Atom feeds and plain text files with one URL per line (Google: Build and submit a sitemap).

Here is one real entry from the sitemap of searchcub.com, this site, fetched on 8 October 2026:

<url>
<loc>https://searchcub.com/blog/what-is-seo</loc>
<lastmod>2026-10-07T20:16:21.417Z</lastmod>
</url>

<loc> holds the page's full address. <lastmod> says when the page last changed; the Z at the end means the time is in UTC, and Google's help says that if you include a time, you must include a time zone. The whole file wraps its entries in one <urlset> element. On that day it held 58 entries; the 52 blog and guide posts carried a <lastmod>, while the six main pages, such as the home and pricing pages, carried only an address.

Does a small blog need one?

Google's guidance lists cases both ways (Google: Learn about sitemaps):

For a blogger, the case to watch is the new blog. Google finds pages by following links from pages it already knows, so a blog that no other site links to yet gives it fewer ways in.

Google's Search Console help adds two shortcuts (Search Console Help: Sitemaps report). If your site runs on a hosting service like Squarespace or Wix, it probably handles the sitemap for you. And for a small site whose pages can all be reached from the home page, Google suggests you "simply request indexing of your homepage" instead.

So for a small, well-linked blog a sitemap is optional. If your platform already makes one, keep it: submitting it takes a few steps and gives you a Search Console report showing when Google read it and any errors it found.

How to find your sitemap

1. Check robots.txt. Open your domain followed by /robots.txt and look for a line that starts with Sitemap:. Google reads that line to find sitemaps, and searchcub.com's file ends with Sitemap: https://searchcub.com/sitemap.xml.

2. Try your platform's address. Since version 5.5, WordPress creates a sitemap index, found at /wp-sitemap.xml, and lists it in the robots.txt file WordPress generates (WordPress core announcement). WordPress turns the sitemap off if your site visibility setting discourages search engines from indexing the site. An SEO plugin may manage the sitemap instead: Yoast SEO's help, for example, says to open its Site features settings and click View the XML sitemap (Yoast help). On other platforms, Google suggests searching the platform's help, such as "wix sitemap".

3. Try the root of your site. Google recommends keeping a sitemap at the root of the site, so /sitemap.xml is worth trying if the first two steps find nothing.

4. Open it in your browser. You should see either a list of page addresses or a sitemap index: a list of other sitemaps, each with its own list. A WordPress index points to separate sitemaps for public content such as posts and pages, for categories and tags, and for author archives.

What a good sitemap lists

A sitemap tells Google which addresses you want shown in search results. Check yours against these points from Google's Build and submit a sitemap page and the Search Console help:

• The pages you want in search results, each at one address. That is Google's own guidance on what to include. If the same post opens at several addresses, list only the one you prefer, the canonical URL.

• Full addresses on your own site. Use complete URLs such as https://www.example.com/mypage.html, not /mypage.html. Search Console reports an address that starts differently from the sitemap's own, such as one that drops the www or uses a different protocol, as "URL not allowed".

• Working pages, not redirects. Google's help suggests replacing any redirecting address with the one Google should actually crawl. Leave out pages you have deleted or hidden from search.

• A <lastmod> only when it is accurate. Google uses it when it is consistently and verifiably accurate, for example when it matches the page's last modification. It should mark the last significant update, such as a change to the main content or links; a new copyright date does not count.

• Skip <priority> and <changefreq>. Google ignores both values, so there is nothing to tune there.

Size is not a concern for a small blog: one sitemap can hold 50,000 URLs or 50MB uncompressed, and WordPress splits its own sitemaps at 2,000 entries each.

To check a single address before you list it, SearchCub's Page checks reports Page responds normally and Canonical URL points to this page for that URL. It reads the page's HTML only, so use Search Console for Google's own view of the page.

How to submit it in Search Console

Google's help describes these steps (Search Console Help: Sitemaps report):

1. Use a property you own. Submitting needs owner permission on the Search Console property. Without it, Google's help says you can point to the sitemap from your robots.txt file instead.

2. Check that Google can fetch it. Run a live URL inspection on the sitemap's address and check that Page fetch is "Successful". The sitemap must not sit behind a login.

3. Submit it. Open the Sitemaps report, paste the sitemap's address into Add a new sitemap and click Submit.

The help says Google should fetch the sitemap straight away, but crawling the listed pages can take time, and some of them may not be crawled at all.

How to read the Sitemaps report

The report lists each sitemap you submitted with its last status. Google's help describes three:

• Status: Success. What it means: Google loaded and processed the file without errors, and queued its URLs for crawling. What to do: Nothing; check back now and then.

• Status: Has errors. What it means: Google fetched the file but found one or more errors; URLs it could read are still queued. What to do: Click the row to see the errors, fix them and resubmit.

• Status: Couldn't fetch. What it means: Google could not fetch the file. What to do: Open the address in your browser, and check it is not blocked by robots.txt or a login.

Discovered pages counts the page URLs Google parsed from the sitemap. To see how many of them are indexed, open the Page indexing report and filter it by that sitemap; to work out why one page is missing, follow why Google hasn't indexed your page.

Two details explain a missing sitemap. The report shows only sitemaps submitted through the report or its API, not ones Google found through robots.txt. And it shows only the current property, so a sitemap submitted for the https or non-www version of your site won't appear under the http or www property.

What a sitemap won't do

Google calls submitting a sitemap "merely a hint": Google may not download it or use it for crawling. The help is equally plain about listed pages: Google gives no guarantee that a URL found in a sitemap has been crawled or indexed, or ever will be.

A sitemap also does not replace links. Google says it can usually discover most of a properly linked site through those links, and your readers find their next post the same way, so internal links for SEO matters whether or not you have a sitemap.

Your next step: open your robots.txt, find your sitemap and check a few of its addresses against your published posts. Then submit it in Search Console and check back on its status from time to time, as Google's help suggests. For the wider question of how your site is doing in search, see how to check your website's SEO performance.