XML Sitemap Submission: Submit to Google and Bing
Submitting your XML sitemap directly to search engines accelerates discovery and gives you visibility into indexing errors that passive crawling would never surface. Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools each have their own submission workflows, and using both covers the majority of search traffic worldwide. This guide walks through every submission method — from manual console submission to automated pings — and explains how to monitor the results.
Submitting to Google Search Console
Go to search.google.com/search-console and select your property. In the left sidebar click Indexing then Sitemaps. In the Add a new sitemap field enter your sitemap URL - usually sitemap.xml or sitemap_index.xml. Click Submit. Google will process your sitemap and show you the number of URLs submitted and discovered. Check this page weekly for any errors Google has encountered in your sitemap.
Submitting to Bing Webmaster Tools
Go to bing.com/webmasters and sign in with a Microsoft account. Add your site if not already added. In the left menu click Sitemaps. Click Submit Sitemap and enter your sitemap URL. Bing processes sitemaps for its own search index - submitting ensures Bing discovers your content, which matters especially if you get traffic from Bing or DuckDuckGo (which uses Bing's index).
Declaring your sitemap in robots.txt
Add Sitemap: https://yoursite.com/sitemap.xml as the last line of your robots.txt file. This allows any crawler - not just Google and Bing - to discover your sitemap automatically without needing a direct submission. It also serves as a permanent, self-updating declaration that does not require re-submission when your sitemap URL changes. All major search engines respect this directive.
Monitoring your sitemap status
After submission, Google Search Console shows the sitemap status: Success (sitemap processed), Has errors (some URLs have issues), or Fetching failed (sitemap URL is inaccessible). For a successfully processed sitemap, check the ratio of URLs submitted to URLs indexed. A low indexing rate (under 50%) suggests content quality issues on submitted pages rather than sitemap problems. Resubmit your sitemap in Search Console after any major site update to prompt fresh processing.
Submitting to IndexNow-enabled search engines
IndexNow is a protocol supported by Bing, Yandex, Naver, and others that lets you ping search engines the moment a page is published or updated. Instead of waiting for your sitemap to be re-crawled on Google's schedule, IndexNow delivers the URL instantly. Many CMS plugins support automatic IndexNow pings on publish. Note: Google does not yet participate in IndexNow, so you still need Search Console for Google coverage. Use both approaches in parallel for maximum reach.
Using HTTP ping to notify search engines
An older but still functional approach: ping search engines by sending a GET request to their sitemap notification URL. For Bing: https://www.bing.com/ping?sitemap=https://yoursite.com/sitemap.xml. This can be automated via a post-deploy script or cron job to notify Bing immediately after a sitemap update. Google deprecated its ping endpoint in 2023, so for Google you must submit through Search Console or rely on Search Console's regular sitemap re-fetch schedule.
What to do when sitemap submission shows errors
If Search Console reports errors after submission, click the sitemap entry to see which specific URLs have issues. Common errors: 'Submitted URL blocked by robots.txt' means a robots.txt Disallow rule covers that URL — either remove the URL from your sitemap or update robots.txt. 'Submitted URL returns 404' means the page is gone — redirect it or remove it from the sitemap. 'Submitted URL has redirect' means the sitemap contains a non-canonical URL — update it to the final destination URL. Fixing these errors improves your overall indexing rate.
How often Google re-fetches your sitemap
After initial submission, Google re-fetches your sitemap on its own schedule — typically every few days to a few weeks depending on your site's crawl frequency. You do not need to resubmit constantly. However, after a major publish event (launching a new section, doing a URL migration, or adding 50+ new pages), manually resubmit your sitemap in Search Console to trigger a faster re-fetch. Use the Resubmit button on the sitemap entry — this queues a fresh fetch within 24 hours in most cases.
Validating your sitemap before submission
A malformed sitemap will fail to process even after successful submission. Before submitting, validate your sitemap XML at validator.w3.org/feed — it checks for malformed XML, encoding issues, and invalid characters. Also check that every URL in your sitemap returns a 200 status code, uses HTTPS if your site uses HTTPS, matches your canonical domain exactly, and does not include any noindex pages. Submitting a clean sitemap gets you higher indexing rates and no error noise in Search Console that could mask real issues.
Before submitting, make sure your sitemap is clean — or use a sitemap checker to catch errors automatically before they surface in Search Console.