A file that lists the URLs you want search engines to know about, often with the date each was last changed. It helps discovery but does not guarantee crawling or indexing.
Example
Meera's shop platform creates sitemap.xml automatically. She submits it in Search Console so Google can find new product pages quickly.
How you'll hear it
“The sitemap still lists 200 deleted products; clean it so it only has live, canonical URLs.”
Don't confuse it with
- HTML sitemap: a page for human visitors listing site sections. XML sitemaps are for search engines.
- robots.txt: says what crawlers may access; a sitemap says what you want found.
Related terms
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Sources
- Learn about sitemaps, Google Search Central