Sitemap (XML)

An XML sitemap is a file (usually at /sitemap.xml) listing every important URL on your site. Google, Bing, and other crawlers read it to learn which pages exist, when they last changed, and how important they are relative to each other.

Format: XML with <url> entries containing <loc> (the URL), <lastmod> (last modified date), <changefreq> (update frequency), and <priority> (a 0-1 importance score). Google largely ignores changefreq and priority, but <loc> and <lastmod> are critical.

For dynamic sites (blogs, glossaries, product catalogs) the sitemap is generated automatically. Submit it in Google Search Console and reference it in robots.txt so crawlers find it without guessing.