Member Avatar for tadisaus2

Hello friends,

I just bought an xml-sitemaps and have question about Google sitemap for SEO.

How often should I run sitemap for new urls or pages?
Do I need to place the html sitemap on the homepage?

Thanks,

Have a nice day!

  • 10 Contributors
  • 9 Replies
  • 218 Views
  • 1 Month Discussion Span
  • Latest Post Latest Post by cools4u

Dani AI

Generated

Short, practical guidance to complement the thread: treat your XML sitemap as the canonical inventory of the pages you actually want shown in search results, and automate or update it when content changes meaningfully (not just every minor edit). For large sites split content into focused child sitemaps and reference them with a sitemap index (each sitemap is limited to 50,000 URLs / 50 MB uncompressed; gzip is allowed). Note that Google treats <lastmod> as useful when accurate, and ignores <priority> and <changefreq>. (developers.google.com)

A simple, low-effort workflow for most sites:

  • Automate sitemap generation on publish (CMS/plugin) or regenerate after bulk uploads.
  • Put a Sitemap: line in your root robots.txt so crawlers can find it.
  • Submit the sitemap (or sitemap index) in Google Search Console and use the URL Inspection tool for a handful of urgent pages.

Example robots.txt line and a quick check:

Sitemap: https://example.com/sitemap.xml.gz
curl -I https://example.com/sitemap.xml.gz   # expect HTTP/2xx

(developers.google.com)

Troubleshooting checklist (most common causes of sitemap problems): make sure sitemap URLs return 200 and are the canonical version, remove redirects/404s/noindex pages from the sitemap, avoid session or tracking parameters, and keep lastmod truthful (don’t fake dates). If a sitemap gets huge, split it and use an index file. Also: Google has deprecated the unauthenticated sitemap “ping” endpoint — rely on Search Console / its API and robots.txt instead of pinging. (sitemaps.org)

Notes tied to thread replies: ’s robots.txt suggestion is correct — make the sitemap discoverable at the root. and were right to mention resubmitting after big uploads; for day‑to‑day publishing automation is cleaner. and are correct that an HTML sitemap helps users — useful for big sites, but don’t rely on it as the only discovery signal. Check Search Console’s Sitemaps and Coverage reports regularly; they’ll tell you the exact problems to fix.

Recommended Answers

All 9 Replies

Member Avatar for Dani

You need to reference the sitemap in an robots.txt file which gets uploaded to the server. You do not need to link to it from your actual webpage / homepage.

The sitemap should always be up-to-date and always contain all the latest pages on your site.

Member Avatar for webelementinc

Hello friends,

I just bought an xml-sitemaps and have question about Google sitemap for SEO.

How often should I run sitemap for new urls or pages?
Do I need to place the html sitemap on the homepage?

Thanks,

Have a nice day!

Every time you add or modify your website pages or URLs you need to run the sitemap. As far as placing the html sitemap on the homepage is concerned, it is always a wise choice to add an HTML sitemap to your website pages not only homepage but every single page for your website in the header and the footer navigation.

Member Avatar for rwsseo

Yes, you should update your sitemap.xml when you add new page or update your urls. It's good sitemap.html link on the homepage.

Member Avatar for brandonna

In Wordpress, just fyi, it's free. Hope you didn't pay too much ;)

Member Avatar for bienbane

You should definitely link to your site map from your home page.

Member Avatar for xtremeux

Hello friends,

I just bought an xml-sitemaps and have question about Google sitemap for SEO.

How often should I run sitemap for new urls or pages?
Do I need to place the html sitemap on the homepage?

Thanks,

Have a nice day!

How often should I run sitemap for new urls or pages?
Google continuously revisit the sitemap and can easily see the changes. So, adding a few new pages, Google will see them. However, if you are adding bunch of pages, advisable to resubmit sitemap through Google Webmaster Tools.

Do I need to place the html sitemap on the homepage?
HTML sitemap helps users to navigate easily if your site has lot of sections and pages. From SEO point, submitting sitemap.xml in Google is enough.

Edited by xtremeux because: n/a
Member Avatar for wesley gibson

i think html site map is for human beings and xml is for google spider robots, because google spider robots read the xml sitemap.

Member Avatar for Elvin3

what wesley gibson is said is absolutely correct and I think i would like to here is you can generate google xml sitemap page at www(.)xml-sitemaps(.)com

Member Avatar for cools4u

Hello friends,

I just bought an xml-sitemaps and have question about Google sitemap for SEO.

How often should I run sitemap for new urls or pages?
Do I need to place the html sitemap on the homepage?

Thanks,

Have a nice day!

SiteMap is used for Navigation in a website. There are two types of Sitemap: HTML and XML.

HTML sitemap is used by the visitors visiting the website and XML sitemap is used by the crawlers crawling the website... both websites play a very important role in indexing and must be included in a website.

Sitemaps must be updated regularly as a new page is added or updated in a website with latest date and priority and submitted in Google.

HTML sitemap link should be added on the Homepage, no need to add any link of XML sitemap on website ...

Be a part of the DaniWeb community

We're a friendly, industry-focused community of developers, IT pros, digital marketers, and technology enthusiasts meeting, networking, learning, and sharing knowledge.