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Submit your sitemap in Google Search Console (2026)

3 min read

What you’ll have at the end

Your sitemap submitted in Google Search Console, and its status read in the Sitemaps report. A sitemap is a file on your site that tells Google which pages it should know about. Submitting it tells Google where the file is; you can't upload a sitemap to Google.

Before you start

You’ll need

  • Your website added and verified in Google Search Console, with you as an owner
  • The address of your website's sitemap file

What it costs. Google says Search Console is a free service.

Please check whether you need this at all. Google says that if a hosting service such as Squarespace or Wix runs your site, it probably manages your sitemap for you. Google also says a small site (about 500 pages or fewer), where every page can be reached by links from the home page, probably doesn't need a sitemap.

You need owner permission on the site's Search Console property. If you haven't added and verified your site yet, please do that first.

You also need your sitemap's address. If your website runs on a hosting service or website builder, its help pages say where your sitemap is, or whether you need one.

Steps

  1. 1. Open your property in Search Console

    Go to search.google.com/search-console and choose your website in the property selector.

  2. 2. Inspect your sitemap's address

    Type the full address of your sitemap into the inspection search bar at the top of the Search Console screen, and press Enter. The address must belong to the property you have open.

  3. 3. Run a live test

    Click Test live URL. Google uses this to check that it can reach the file without a login.

  4. 4. Check the result

    In the live test results, check that Page fetch shows "Successful". If it doesn't, Google can't reach the file yet, and submitting it won't work until that's fixed.

  5. 5. Open the Sitemaps report

    Open the Sitemaps report for your property. (Google's Sitemaps report help page has an Open Sitemaps report link that takes you there.)

  6. 6. Enter the sitemap address

    Paste your sitemap's address into the Add a new sitemap box.

  7. 7. Click Submit

    Click Submit. Google says the sitemap should be fetched immediately.

  8. 8. Read the status

    Find your sitemap in the list and read its Status: - Success: the sitemap was loaded and processed with no errors. - Has errors: Google fetched it but found errors. Click the sitemap in the table to see them. - Couldn't fetch: Google couldn't get the file. Google's help lists reasons, such as the file being blocked by your robots.txt file.

    Google says it can take some time to crawl the pages listed in a sitemap, and there's no guarantee every page in it will be crawled or indexed.

If something looks different

  • If you aren't an owner of the property, Google suggests listing the sitemap in your robots.txt file instead.
  • Search Console allows only a limited number of live tests per property each day. If you reach it, please try step 3 again the next day.
  • Some reports show an Inspect link next to a page address; that opens the same inspection tool as step 2.

Related guides

Sources

Alongrail isn't affiliated with Google.