How to check that Google can read your sitemap in Search Console

What a sitemap is, in plain words

A sitemap is a file on your website that lists the pages you want to show up in Google, a bit like a table of contents. Search Console is a free Google tool that shows you how Google sees your site, and its Sitemaps report tells you whether Google could read that file.

Before you start

You need access to your site's Search Console property. If you have never set it up, or someone else did and you have no login, that is the first thing to sort out. Whoever built your site may still hold the only access. Submitting a sitemap needs owner permissions on the property, so if a button is missing, ask the person who set it up to make you an owner.

Step 1: open the Sitemaps report

• Go to search.google.com/search-console and pick your site.
• In the left menu, under Indexing, click Sitemaps.
• Scroll to "Submitted sitemaps."

You will see a table with each sitemap's address, its type, when it was submitted, when Google last read it, its status, and how many pages Google discovered from it.

Step 2: read the status

The status column tells you most of what you need. Google's own help page for this report, Sitemaps report, defines the three you will see.

• Success. The sitemap was loaded and processed with no errors, and the pages in it are lined up to be crawled. Check that the Last read date is recent, within the last few weeks for an active site.
• Has errors. Google could fetch the sitemap, but it found one or more problems inside it. The pages it could read cleanly are still queued. Click the row to see the exact errors.
• Couldn't fetch. Google could not retrieve the file at all.

If the table is empty, no sitemap was ever submitted through this report. Google's page notes that the table only lists sitemaps submitted here, so one that Google found through your robots.txt file will not appear in it.

What to do about "Couldn't fetch"

Click the row to open the details page, where Google lists a reason. Three cover most small business sites.

• The address is wrong. Google reports a 404, which means nothing was found at that address. Paste the address into your browser. If you get an error page, the address in Search Console needs correcting.
• Your robots.txt file blocks it. Robots.txt is a small file that tells search engines which parts of a site to stay out of. If a rule in it covers the sitemap, Google is shut out. Whoever builds your site can remove that rule.
• The server had a problem. A general error such as the server being down can be temporary. Wait and look again before changing anything.

Google retries a failed sitemap for a few days and then stops, so after a fix, enter the address again in the "Add a new sitemap" box at the top of the report.

What to do about "Has errors"

Open the sitemap row and read the error list. Google names each problem; these are the plain meanings of the common ones.

• "URLs not followed" means some addresses in the sitemap redirect somewhere else. The sitemap should list the final address, the one a visitor ends up on.
• "URL not allowed" means the sitemap lists addresses on a different domain than the sitemap itself.
• "Empty sitemap" means the file has no addresses in it. Ask whoever builds your site to regenerate it.

You do not need to fix these yourself. Copy the exact wording of the error into an email to whoever manages your site and ask them to fix it.

Step 3: compare "discovered pages" with your real site

Next to each sitemap is a count of discovered pages. Compare it with the number of pages you would expect. A ten-page site with three discovered pages is missing something. One with four hundred usually has old, tag or test pages in the sitemap that should not be there. Google's guidance on building a sitemap says to list the addresses you want to see in search results, each written out in full, starting with https and your domain.

An old sitemap still listed after a rebuild

A business moves from WordPress to a new platform, and the old sitemap address stays in Search Console. Google keeps trying to read a file that no longer exists and reports "Couldn't fetch," while the new sitemap was never submitted.

The fix: submit the new sitemap address, then remove the old one from the list. Click the old row, open the three-dot menu, and choose Remove sitemap. Google's help page adds that removing a sitemap only takes it off your report. If the old file is still on your site, Google remembers it, so make sure the old file is gone too.

The sitemap was never submitted

If the Submitted sitemaps table is empty, Google was never told where your sitemap is. Finding your sitemap address and submitting it are covered step by step in my redirects, sitemap and canonicals post. Before you submit, open the address in your browser to confirm it loads. Google recommends keeping the file at the top level of your site, as in yoursite.com/sitemap.xml. Come back to this report a few days after you submit and confirm the status reads Success.

The sitemap lists pages Google can't use

Sometimes the sitemap is fine but the pages inside it redirect somewhere else or are blocked from search. Search Console flags these under Indexing, then Pages. At the top of that report, change the filter from "All known pages" to "All submitted pages," and you see only the addresses from your sitemap. Google's Page indexing report names the reasons a page is left out. The ones to look for here:

• "Page with redirect" means the address sends visitors elsewhere, so only the destination is indexed.
• "URL marked 'noindex'" means the page carries an instruction telling Google to keep it out of search.
• "URL blocked by robots.txt" means the robots.txt file shuts Google out of that page.
• "Not found (404)" means the page no longer exists. Google says this is often fine for a page you removed on purpose. If the page moved, it needs a 301 redirect to its new address, which is covered in the post linked above.

Pages in your sitemap should be the final, live addresses you want people to land on.

After any redesign, check again in a week

Any time your site moves platforms, changes its address, or gets rebuilt, check this report a week later. Submit the new sitemap, remove the old one, and make sure the status reads Success with a fresh date. It is one of the quickest ways to catch a migration problem before it costs you traffic.

Keeping an eye on it

This is the kind of check that is easy to forget until something breaks. My maintenance plan sends you a weekly email with your search numbers along with the monthly updates, so a drop like this shows up early instead of months later. Details are at frameworkstudio.dev.

How do I know if Google has read my sitemap?

Open Google Search Console, go to Indexing, then Sitemaps. Each submitted sitemap shows a status and a Last read date. Success with a recent date means Google is reading it.

What does 'Couldn't fetch' mean?

Google tried to load the sitemap and failed. The address may be wrong, the file may be blocked, or the server may have been down when Google tried.

Do I need to resubmit my sitemap every time I add a page?

No. Google rereads a submitted sitemap on its own schedule. Resubmit after a major change, such as a rebuild or a platform move, or after you fix a sitemap Google could not fetch.

Why does my sitemap say Has errors?

Google loaded the file but found problems in it. The pages it could read are still queued. Click the sitemap's row to see the exact errors and fix those.

Where is my sitemap?

On most sites it lives at yoursite.com/sitemap.xml. Some platforms use a different name, so check your platform's help page if that address shows an error.