How to Submit Your Sitemap to Google Search Console

A sitemap is an XML file that lists the pages on your website, helping search engines discover and crawl your content efficiently. Submitting your sitemap to Google Search Console is one of the first things you should do after setting up a new website or adding significant new content — it gives Google a roadmap to your pages rather than leaving it to find them through links alone.

The process is straightforward and takes only a few minutes, but the impact can be meaningful for larger sites or sites with pages that are not well-linked internally.

Finding Your Sitemap URL

Most modern content management systems generate a sitemap automatically. For WordPress sites, the Yoast SEO or Rank Math plugin creates a sitemap at yoursite.co.uk/sitemap_index.xml or yoursite.co.uk/sitemap.xml. Shopify generates a sitemap at yourshop.co.uk/sitemap.xml. Squarespace and Wix also create sitemaps automatically at the /sitemap.xml path.

To confirm your sitemap exists, open your browser and type your domain followed by /sitemap.xml. If you see an XML file with a list of URLs, that is your sitemap. If you get a 404 error, your site may not have a sitemap configured — check your CMS settings or install an SEO plugin that generates one.

Submitting the Sitemap in Search Console

Log into Google Search Console and select your property. In the left-hand navigation under Indexing, click Sitemaps. In the "Add a new sitemap" field, enter the path of your sitemap after your domain name — for example, sitemap.xml or sitemap_index.xml. Click Submit.

Search Console will attempt to fetch and parse your sitemap immediately. After a few seconds, the submitted sitemap will appear in the list with a status. "Success" means Google has read the file and discovered the URLs it contains. The "Discovered URLs" count shows how many pages Google found in your sitemap.

Common Sitemap Errors and How to Resolve Them

A "Couldn't fetch" error means Google could not retrieve your sitemap file. Check that the URL is correct, that your server is returning a 200 response for that URL, and that your robots.txt file is not blocking Googlebot from accessing it. A "Sitemap could be read, but has errors" status means the XML is malformed — validate your sitemap using a free online XML validator or the Google Search Console's own URL Inspection tool.

If your sitemap contains URLs that return 404 errors or redirects, those will show as warnings in the Index Coverage report. Keep your sitemap accurate by setting up automated sitemap regeneration whenever you publish, update, or delete pages. Stale sitemaps that reference deleted pages are a common and easily avoided SEO issue.