Submit your XML sitemap to search engines

1. Upload the sitemap file or files to the root directory for your website in your web hosting server.

You can use your web host’s online tool like cPanel, or connect via FTP or SSH using an application like FileZilla. This will often be named for your domain name, for example www.example.com. Note the names you gave to the sitemap file or files.

2. Locate the robots.txt file in the root directory, open it and add this line to your robots.txt file:

Sitemap: https://yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml Replace the URL with the correct URL to your sitemap. If you have more than one main sitemap, for example, image, video, and post/page sitemap, include them in separate lines, including the sitemap: statement on each line. If you have a sitemap index file that collates sitemap files, use its filename and location.

3. Go to Google Search Console and click on Sitemap. Type your sitemap URL and click on Submit.

If you have multiple sitemaps with a sitemap index file, you only need to type the URL for the index file.

4. Go to Bing Webmasters and click on Sitemap. Click on the Submit Sitemap button and type the URL of your sitemap.

If you have multiple sitemaps with a sitemap index file, you only need to type the URL for the index file.

5. Check to see if there are errors after Google Search Console and Bing have processed your sitemap.

In Google Search Console, navigate to Coverage and filter to your sitemap by clicking on the dropdown and selecting the name of your sitemap file. In the Sitemap section of Bing Webmaster Tools, look at the Sitemaps with errors and Sitemaps with warnings reports.