# How to submit a sitemap to Google and Bing

Submitting a sitemap takes two minutes in each tool and tells the search engines where your pages are. It does not make them index anything. Here is where the file lives, how to submit it, what the report says afterwards, and what to do when the status is not Success.

Updated 2026-09-15 · Source: https://porteur.ai/guides/how-to-submit-a-sitemap

## First, find the file

Almost every platform generates one for you. Try these addresses in a browser before you build anything.

- yourproduct.com/sitemap.xml, the convention and the first thing to try.
- yourproduct.com/sitemap_index.xml, what several CMS plugins produce.
- yourproduct.com/robots.txt, which usually declares the sitemap on a Sitemap: line.
- Your framework's route: a sitemap file in the app for Next.js and Nuxt, an integration for Astro, a plugin for WordPress, automatic on Shopify, Squarespace, Webflow and Ghost.

What you should see is XML listing your URLs, each with a lastmod date. If you see the home page only, or a page of 404s, fix the file before submitting it.

> A sitemap can only list URLs on its own host. A sitemap at yourproduct.com cannot list pages on blog.yourproduct.com unless you set up the approved cross-host arrangement.

## Submit it to Google

1. **Verify the property first** Search Console shows nothing for a site it does not know you own. A Domain property, verified by a DNS record, covers every subdomain and both protocols and is the right default.
2. **Open Sitemaps** In the left menu under Indexing. The box asks for the path after your domain, so type sitemap.xml, not the whole address.
3. **Submit, then leave it** The status is often pending for a few minutes to a few hours. Refreshing does not make Google read it sooner.
4. **Declare it in robots.txt as well** A Sitemap: line with the full URL. It costs nothing and is how every other crawler finds the file.

```text
User-agent: *
Allow: /

Sitemap: https://yourproduct.com/sitemap.xml
```

## Submit it to Bing, which takes one click

Bing's index answers Bing, Microsoft Copilot, Yahoo Search and part of DuckDuckGo. It is worth the ten minutes, and the setup is shorter than Google's.

1. **Import from Search Console** Bing Webmaster Tools offers a one-click import of a site already verified in Google Search Console, which brings the verification and the sitemaps with it.
2. **Or verify directly** An XML file, a meta tag or a DNS CNAME, if you would rather not connect the two accounts.
3. **Add the sitemap** The Sitemaps section takes the full URL of the file.
4. **Turn on IndexNow for new pages** IndexNow pushes a URL to Bing the moment it changes, and is honoured by Yandex, Naver and Seznam too. Many platforms and CDNs have a switch for it; otherwise it is one API call in your deploy.

## What the report tells you afterwards

| Status | What it means | What to do |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Success | The file was read and its URLs were discovered | Nothing. Discovered is not indexed, so read the Page indexing report next |
| Has errors | The file was read and something in it is invalid | Open the details: usually a URL on another host, a bad date format, or malformed XML |
| Couldn't fetch | Google could not get the file | Check it loads in a browser, is not blocked in robots.txt, and returns 200 rather than a redirect chain |

The report also shows the date it was last read and the number of URLs discovered. That count is what Google found in the file, not what it indexed. The gap between the two lives in the Page indexing report.

## What belongs in the file, and what does not

- Only canonical URLs. One entry per page, in the form you link to internally.
- Only URLs that answer 200. Redirects, 404s and noindexed pages in a sitemap are a contradiction: you are asking for indexing and refusing it at the same time.
- An accurate lastmod, or none at all. Google reads lastmod when a site is consistently honest about it, and ignores it otherwise.
- Nothing in changefreq or priority. Google ignores both.
- Up to 50,000 URLs or 50 MB uncompressed per file. Past that, split the file and list the parts in a sitemap index.

> The commonest mistake on a small site: a generated sitemap that stamps today's date on every URL at every build. Dates that are all identical and always fresh are dates Google learns to ignore.

## What a sitemap does not do

A sitemap helps discovery. That is all it does, and it is worth having for exactly that reason.

- It does not make Google index a page. Indexing is a judgement about the page, not about the file that mentioned it.
- It does not rank anything, and no priority value has ever changed a position.
- It does not replace links. A page listed in the sitemap and linked from nowhere is still a page nobody points at, and it ranks accordingly.
- It does not fix a page blocked by robots.txt or carrying a noindex tag. Those beat the sitemap every time.

A finished setup looks like this: one sitemap at a stable address, listing only canonical URLs that answer 200, declared in robots.txt, submitted in both tools, reporting Success, with the count of discovered URLs close to the number of pages you meant to publish.

## Questions

### Do I need to submit a sitemap at all?

Google can find a site without one, through links and its own crawl. Submitting is still worth two minutes: it makes discovery faster for a new site, and the report tells you when the file itself is broken.

### How long does Google take to read a submitted sitemap?

Usually minutes to hours for the file itself. The URLs inside it are then crawled on Google's own schedule, which for a new site is days to a few weeks.

### Why does the sitemap say Couldn't fetch?

Open the URL in a browser. The usual causes are a file that 404s, a redirect chain in front of it, a robots.txt that disallows the path, or a server that refuses requests without a browser user agent.

### Should my sitemap include pages that are noindexed?

No. A sitemap is a list of pages you want indexed. Listing a noindexed page sends contradictory signals and wastes crawl; keep the file to canonical, indexable URLs.

### Do I need to resubmit after every change?

No. Google rereads the file on its own. Resubmit after a structural change, such as moving to a sitemap index or changing the file's address, and keep the lastmod dates honest so rereads are useful.

### What is the difference between a sitemap and IndexNow?

A sitemap is a list crawlers come and read when they choose. IndexNow is a push: you tell Bing and the engines that honour the protocol that a URL changed, the moment it changes. Google does not use IndexNow.

## Read next

- [The Sitemaps report: what Success, Has errors and Couldn’t fetch mean](https://porteur.ai/guides/search-console-sitemaps-report): How to submit your sitemap URL, read Success, Has errors and Couldn’t fetch, and fix invalid XML, 404s, cross‑host URLs and missing child sitemaps.
- [XML sitemap](https://porteur.ai/glossary/xml-sitemap): What to put in sitemap.xml, how lastmod works, how to create, validate and submit your XML sitemap, and the traps to avoid.
- [Sitemap index](https://porteur.ai/glossary/sitemap-index): A sitemap index lists your sitemap files. Use it when you split URLs by section or language, or pass one sitemap’s 50,000 URL or 50 MB limit.
- [How to verify a site in Google Search Console, and which property to pick](https://porteur.ai/guides/how-to-verify-google-search-console): Pick Domain or URL-prefix, then verify in minutes with DNS, an HTML file or a meta tag. Avoid common pitfalls and know what to check first.
- [Bing Webmaster Tools for a small site: what it gives that Google does not](https://porteur.ai/guides/bing-webmaster-tools): Set up Bing Webmaster Tools in minutes. Import from Search Console, reach Copilot and Yahoo, use Backlinks, Keyword Research, Site Scan and IndexNow.
- [How to submit a website to Google in 2026 (and why you mostly do not have to)](https://porteur.ai/guides/submit-website-to-google): You do not need a submission form. Verify Search Console, add a sitemap, and request indexing for single URLs when needed. Fix blockers if nothing shows.
- [Sitemap checker](https://porteur.ai/tools/sitemap-checker): Read a sitemap the way a crawler does: what it lists, how it is dated, whether robots.txt names it, and whether thirty of its addresses answer 200.

Paste your URL and the free check reads your sitemap along with the site: the URLs that redirect, the ones that answer nothing, and the pages missing from the file entirely. Free check: https://porteur.ai/