If you’ve ever wondered how search engines like Google discover and crawl your website, the answer often starts with your sitemap. Think of it as your website’s roadmap – guiding bots to your most important pages.
But just having a sitemap isn’t enough. You need to optimize it properly for better crawling, indexing, and ultimately, search visibility.
So, if you’re ready to level up your SEO game, here are some best sitemap practices you should be following—especially in 2025!
- Use the Correct Sitemap Format – XML Sitemap
- Include All Your Important Indexable Pages in XML Sitemap
- Break Down Large Sitemaps into Smaller Ones
- Add “Last Modified” Dates (But Don’t Fake It!)
- Prioritize Your Content
- Submit Your Sitemap to Search Engines
- Tell Search Engines About Images and Videos Through Your Sitemap
- Submit Your Sitemap to Search Engines
Use the Correct Sitemap Format – XML Sitemap
When it comes to SEO, XML sitemaps are your safest bet. They’re designed for search engines and can include URLs of your pages, along with last modified dates, change frequency, and priority. While there are different types of sitemaps, the XML sitemap is the most crucial for SEO. It’s a structured file specifically designed for search engines, and following sitemap best practices for this type of file is absolutely essential for discoverability. Forget HTML sitemaps for this purpose – they’re more for user navigation.
Tip: For users on platforms like Shopify or WordPress, XML sitemaps are usually auto-generated—but don’t forget to review your Shopify sitemap or WordPress sitemap to ensure they align with sitemap best practices!
Include All Your Important Indexable Pages in XML Sitemap
Your sitemap should list every page you want search engines to crawl and index. This includes:
- Blog posts: Every single one!
- Product pages: If you have an e-commerce site.
- Service pages: Detailing what you offer.
- Category and tag pages: If they provide unique value.
- About Us, Contact Us, Privacy Policy: Essential informational pages.
A key part of sitemap best practices is ensuring your sitemap only includes indexable and important URLs. That means:
- No 404s
- No redirects
- No duplicate content
- No URLs blocked by robots.txt
Tip: To consistently follow best sitemap practices, run a sitemap audit once every 1–2 months using tools like Screaming Frog or Ahrefs.
Break Down Large Sitemaps into Smaller Ones
If your website has thousands of pages, a single sitemap can become unwieldy. Google recommends keeping sitemaps under 50,000 URLs and 50MB in uncompressed size. If you exceed this, a crucial sitemap best practice is to break your sitemap into smaller, more manageable ones (e.g., sitemap_blog.xml, sitemap_products.xml). You’ll then create a sitemap index file that lists all these individual sitemaps.
To follow this sitemap best practice, consider splitting your sitemap into different sections:
- /sitemap-products.xml
- /sitemap-blogs.xml
- /sitemap-collections.xml
Add “Last Modified” Dates (But Don’t Fake It!)
Use the <lastmod> tag for pages that actually change. This helps search engines know which pages to revisit more often.
It also signals that your website is actively maintained, which can positively influence crawl behavior over time — one of the essential sitemap best practices for SEO.
Important: Don’t update the <lastmod> date daily if there’s no actual content change. Google’s smarter than that now, and misusing it goes against sitemap best practices.
Prioritize Your Content
The <priority> tag (ranging from 0.0 to 1.0) can be used to suggest the relative importance of a page to search engines. However, use this with caution! Search engines are smart, and they’ll ultimately decide the priority. Overusing or misusing this tag can actually be detrimental. Yes, you can use the <priority> tag to tell Google what’s most important, but it’s not a ranking factor.
Use it to highlight key pages like:
- Homepage
- Category pages
- High-performing blog posts
Don’t assign everything a 1.0. That’s like telling your teacher every student is a topper. It doesn’t help.
Submit Your Sitemap to Search Engines
Creating the perfect sitemap is only half the battle. You need to tell search engines where to find it! The primary way to do this is through:
- Google Search Console: This is a must-do. Go to “Sitemaps” under the “Indexing” section and submit your sitemap URL(s).
- Bing Webmaster Tools: Similarly, submit your sitemap here.
You can also include a line in your robots.txt file pointing to your sitemap
Tell Search Engines About Images and Videos Through Your Sitemap
Your text content isn’t the only thing that deserves visibility—images and videos can also drive traffic through Google Image Search and video results. But here’s the catch: search engines often struggle to discover multimedia content on their own.
That’s where image and video sitemaps come in handy—an essential part of sitemap best practices in 2025.
For Images:
You can enhance your existing sitemap or create a separate one that includes <image:image> tags for each URL. These can include:
- Image location (URL)
- Caption
- Title
- License info (optional)
Why it matters: If your product or blog pages contain valuable visuals, this increases the chances of them showing up in Google Image Search—following sitemap best practices helps ensure nothing is missed.
For Videos:
Use <video:video> tags to describe video content. Important fields include:
- Video title
- Description
- Thumbnail URL
- Video URL or embed location
- Duration
Why it matters: Proper video markup boosts your visibility in video search results and can enhance click-through rates via rich snippets—making this a must-follow in any list of sitemap best practices.
In short: If you’ve invested time in multimedia, don’t let it sit unseen. Let search engines know it’s there—your sitemap is the perfect place to do that, aligning with modern sitemap best practices.
Submit Your Sitemap to Search Engines
Creating the perfect sitemap is only half the battle. You need to tell search engines where to find it! The primary way to do this is through:
Google Search Console: This is a must-do. Go to “Sitemaps” under the “Indexing” section and submit your sitemap URL(s).
Bing Webmaster Tools: Similarly, submit your sitemap here.
You can also include a line in your robots.txt file pointing to your sitemap:
Sitemap: https://www.yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml
A well-maintained sitemap is a foundational element of good SEO. It’s not a magic bullet for instant rankings, but it’s an essential tool that helps search engines understand, crawl, and index your website more efficiently. By following these best sitemap practices, you’re not just creating a technical file; you’re actively helping your content get discovered by the people who are looking for it. So, go forth and optimize your sitemaps!
