Website basics
List published canonical URLs in a sitemap
An XML sitemap helps search engines discover URLs. Submission does not guarantee that each page will appear in search results.
On this page
Select the intended URLs
List published canonical pages you want discovered. Exclude drafts, missing pages, and outdated redirect sources. Check each language edition when it has its own URL.
Verify format and dates
Use absolute URLs and UTF-8. If supplying lastmod, reflect meaningful actual updates rather than assigning today's date to every page on each build.
Fetch the production file
Open the deployed sitemap, check its XML, and test destination pages. Reconcile its URLs with canonical annotations.
Separate submission from indexing
Inspect processing results after submission. For an unindexed page, use page-level inspection to investigate crawl and indexing state. A sitemap does not replace useful content or ordinary internal navigation.
Select the image to enlarge.
- Select public canonical pages you want discovered.
- Check URL formatting and actual modification dates where provided.
- Retrieve the live sitemap and compare its entries with pages and canonicals.
Maintain both machine-readable and reader-facing discovery
An XML sitemap communicates addresses to machines. An article index and contextual links help people choose and reach content. Adding a sitemap entry does not remove the need for ordinary navigation.
Use the published-content inventory to compare both surfaces. Look for drafts or outdated addresses present in only one. For language editions, equal counts alone do not prove correct correspondence; compare the actual URLs.
Example: publish a Japanese and English article pair
First verify both public article addresses and their content. Align each page's canonical address with the URL intended for the sitemap, and ensure the respective article lists provide links.
After generation and deployment, fetch the production XML and look for the new entries. A local sitemap containing them does not establish that the deployed file has changed.
Following submission, record retrieval or processing results separately from page-level indexing. Those are different observations in the publication path.
Trace a missing URL through the stages
| Stage | What to inspect |
|---|---|
| Source and publication | The intended public page exists and renders |
| Canonical choice | Page and sitemap identify the same address |
| Production XML | The new entry is actually present |
| Retrieval and processing | The submitted file can be handled |
| Individual page | Its crawl and indexing state |
If you publish modification dates, connect them to actual content changes. Rebuilding the site alone should not imply that every article received a meaningful revision.
Keep a production record of additions, URL changes, and substantive edits so the sitemap can be checked against a real source of truth.
Successful submission is useful evidence about one stage. It should not be expanded into a claim that discovery, crawling, and indexing of every listed article are complete. The staged review shows both what you have verified and where any remaining issue belongs.