Search and SEO
What is XML sitemap?
An XML sitemap is a file listing the URLs you want search engines to know about, with optional metadata such as when each was last modified. It is a discovery aid, not an indexing instruction — it helps engines find pages, and it cannot make a weak page rank.
Also called: sitemap.xml · sitemap index
The rules that decide whether it helps
- Canonical URLs only — a sitemap listing a URL that canonicalises elsewhere sends two contradictory signals
- Indexable URLs only: no noindex pages, no redirects, no 404s
- Honest lastmod. If it changes on every deploy regardless of content, it is noise and gets ignored
- Under 50,000 URLs and 50 MB per file, split with a sitemap index above that
- Referenced from robots.txt and submitted in Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools
Generate it, never hand-write it
A hand-maintained sitemap is correct on the day it is written and drifts every day after. Generating from the routes that actually exist eliminates missing pages, ghosts of deleted ones, and stale timestamps in one move.
What the coverage report is telling you
"Discovered — currently not indexed" usually means the URL was found and judged not worth the crawl. That is a quality and internal-linking signal, not a sitemap problem, and resubmitting the file will not change it.
Where this is covered in depth
A definition can only go so far. XML sitemaps: useful, misunderstood, and no substitute for links covers this properly — 2 minutes, free, no email required.
Who wrote this
Anas Bin Masud builds e-commerce sites and does technical SEO for businesses in the UK, Canada and Pakistan. These definitions come from client work rather than from a content brief — where an entry describes a mistake, it is usually one found on a real site. More about how I work.