New: see if ChatGPT, Perplexity and Claude can read your pages. Scan your site free →
Indexidia
Log inStart free
Home / Tutorials / Sitemap checklist
Basics · 2 min

Sitemap checklist

Five rules that make every crawl count.

  1. 1

    Only pages you want found

    No redirects, errors, copies or noindex pages.

  2. 2

    Real "last changed" dates

    Only update the date when the page really changed.

  3. 3

    Split big sitemaps

    Up to 50,000 pages per file, joined by a sitemap index.

  4. 4

    Link it from robots.txt

    Add one line: Sitemap: https://yoursite.com/sitemap.xml

  5. 5

    Keep pages fast

    Under 3 seconds, with no server errors.

Next: Check if AI recommends your business →All tutorials
Keep learning

Related guides

Start here3 min

Add your site and verify it

Add your domain, upload one small file, press Verify.

Read the guide →
Basics2 min

How IndexNow gets pages into Bing in minutes

Tell search engines about new pages instead of waiting to be found.

Read the guide →
Pro5 min

Connect Google Search Console

See Google's own status for every page, with a read-only key.

Read the guide →

Scan your site free

Just your domain. We find the pages Google is likely to skip. About 10 seconds.