How to Submit Your Sitemap to Google Search Console

Creating an XML sitemap is only the first step. To make sure Google discovers it promptly and uses it to crawl your site, you should submit it directly through Google Search Console. This takes just a few minutes and gives you access to reporting on how many of your URLs have been discovered and indexed.

This guide walks you through the submission process from start to finish, explains what to do if errors appear, and covers how to manage your sitemap over time.

Before you submit: find your sitemap URL

Before heading to Google Search Console, you need to know where your sitemap is. On most WordPress sites with an SEO plugin installed, the sitemap is at yourwebsite.com/sitemap.xml or yourwebsite.com/sitemap_index.xml. Shopify puts it at yourwebsite.com/sitemap.xml. Yoast SEO typically uses /sitemap_index.xml as the primary URL, which links to sub-sitemaps for posts, pages, and custom post types.

To confirm the URL, simply type it into your browser. You should see an XML file — either a list of URLs or a sitemap index linking to other sitemaps. If you see a 404 error, your sitemap hasn’t been generated yet, or the URL is different to what you expected. Check your SEO plugin settings or platform documentation to locate the correct URL.

While you’re there, quickly scan the sitemap to make sure it looks right. Check that your key pages are included and that you don’t see any URLs that should be excluded (admin pages, noindex pages, or checkout URLs on e-commerce sites).

Submitting your sitemap in Google Search Console

Log in to Google Search Console at search.google.com/search-console. Select the correct property for your website — if you haven’t verified your site yet, you’ll need to do that first using one of Google’s verification methods (HTML tag, DNS record, or Google Analytics). Once you’re in your property, find “Sitemaps” in the left-hand menu under the “Indexing” section.

In the Sitemaps section, you’ll see a field labelled “Add a new sitemap” with your site’s domain already filled in. Enter the path to your sitemap — for example, “sitemap.xml” or “sitemap_index.xml” — and click Submit. Google Search Console will immediately attempt to fetch the sitemap and report back on how many URLs it found.

If you have a sitemap index file (a sitemap that links to multiple individual sitemaps), submit only the index file. Google will follow the links within it to discover all the individual sitemaps. You don’t need to submit each sub-sitemap separately.

Understanding the results and fixing errors

After submission, the Sitemaps report shows your sitemap URL, the date it was last read, and the number of URLs discovered. It also shows a status: “Success”, “Couldn’t fetch”, or specific error types. A “Success” status means Google fetched the file without problems, though it doesn’t mean all URLs have been indexed yet — discovery and indexing are separate steps.

Common errors include “Couldn’t fetch” (Google can’t access your sitemap URL — check it’s publicly accessible and your robots.txt isn’t blocking it), “HTTP error” (a server error when Google tries to load the file), and “URL not allowed” (a URL in your sitemap is blocked by robots.txt).

The Sitemaps report also shows a separate count of “Discovered” vs “Indexed” URLs. A large gap between these figures doesn’t necessarily mean something is wrong — Google may choose not to index low-quality or duplicate pages even when it discovers them. Monitor the report over time and investigate any URLs that consistently fail to get indexed.