XML Sitemap Generator Articles

News Sitemaps Are Not Standard XML Sitemaps — The Format, 48-Hour Rule, and Google News Inclusion Process Explained

News sitemaps use a different XML namespace with required fields (news:publication, news:publication_date, news:title) and a 48-hour recency rule — Google's News crawler processes them separately from standard Googlebot indexing. Here's the exact XML structure, why the 48-hour limit exists, how Google News inclusion differs from organic indexing (different system, different requirements), and what happened to the AMP requirement for Top Stories after June 2021.

Jun 29, 2026

Why Putting Everything in Your Sitemap Hurts More Than It Helps — Sitemap Quality Over Quantity

Submitting 10,000 URLs in a sitemap when your site has 500 worth indexing wastes crawl budget and signals poor quality — sitemaps are hints to Google, not commands. Here's what sitemaps actually do (discovery and crawl scheduling signals) vs what they don't (override noindex, guarantee indexing), why pagination, filter parameters, and canonicalized-away duplicates shouldn't be in your sitemap, and why accurate lastmod dates matter more than frequent updates.

Jun 22, 2026

Sitemap Priority and Changefreq: Why Google Mostly Ignores Them — and What's Worth Getting Right Instead

XML sitemaps have priority and changefreq fields that look like crawl-prioritization controls — and Google has stated it largely ignores both, relying instead on observed crawl/change patterns. Here's why self-reported metadata loses value when it doesn't reflect reality, why lastmod is the one field worth getting right (if it's genuinely accurate), and where sitemap effort actually matters.

Jun 13, 2026

Image and Video Sitemaps: How to Feed Google Images and Video Search Beyond Standard XML

Standard XML sitemaps only cover pages — image and video sitemaps feed Google Images and Google Video with specific metadata. Here's the full XML structure for both types, when they provide the most value, the licence property for photographers, and how to organise them with a sitemap index.

Jun 10, 2026

Sitemap Indexation: Why Google Doesn't Index All Your Submitted URLs

A low sitemap indexation ratio is Google giving you feedback. Here's what the common exclusion reasons (crawled-not-indexed, duplicate canonicals, 404s) actually mean, how crawl budget works for large sites, and how to improve what gets indexed.

Jun 9, 2026

XML Sitemap Generator — Help Google Discover & Index All Your Pages

Learn how XML sitemaps work, what to include and exclude, the size limits, how to use sitemap index files, and how to submit and monitor your sitemap in Google Search Console with a free generator.

Jun 6, 2026