SEO

Should You Submit Your Sitemap Every Month?

This week’s Ask An SEO comes from Renee in Iowa, who writes:

“I read somewhere that you have to submit the sitemap every month. When you provide the XML URL, isn’t it just that – the URL and therefore updates are always there?”

I’m using RankMath which generates my XML file. It didn’t look like I was uploading a file to Google Search Console or Bing Webmaster Tools (in fact, I allowed Bing to import from Google Console).

Perhaps the confusion is that the HTML file needs to be refreshed monthly. I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on that, thank you! “

there Much To unpack here, and Renee’s question is getting on some of my nerves that I’d like to dive into.

Before I do that, though, I’m going to say no, you don’t have to submit your sitemap every month.

Now, let’s address some common questions and misconceptions about sitemaps before we go into more detail about Renee’s question.

What is the value in XML sitemaps?

XML sitemaps are a huge headache for me.

It seems like 75% of the 3rd party SEO audits I see these days all start with “Don’t have an XML sitemap, create one!”

This can be good SEO advice, but most of the time it’s just another task that won’t help a customer get more traffic.

XML sitemaps are not a ranking factor.

Leaving hreflang and other things aside, its main use is link discovery.

This means that if you have a really good site structure and code your site using best practices, search engines are more likely to discover all of your links without the need for a sitemap.

For many sites with technical issues affecting crawling, it can be a lifesaver.

This context is important in the sense that an XML sitemap may be an important SEO fix, or it may not be necessary at all.

If you are an SEO professional including in your audit without context, you are doing your client a disservice.

Well, I need an XML sitemap, how often can I submit it?

Ideally, you only need to submit your sitemap once (per search engine) in the search console.

Then, they’ll keep recrawling it on a schedule that they think makes sense based on what they know about your site.

You should also refer to the sitemap in your robots.txt file.

There’s really no reason to keep filing after that.

If you’re doing a major remodeling and update and want to re-send it for peace of mind, go for it. There is no harm.

… like a knife

One of the most common sayings in SEO bids is: “___ like a knife. You can use it to butter bread, or stab yourself” and XML sitemaps are no exception to this rule.

Although XML sitemaps can be a great way to index URLs, they can also be dangerous if you are not aware of them.

Most of the websites I look at have XML sitemaps with many errors.

Many URLs don’t automatically update or remove when a site changes, so they end up sending a sitemap full of 301 redirects or pages that don’t exist anymore (404).

Years ago at a conference, a Bing rep told me that if there were a number of URLs in your XML sitemap with a status other than 200, Bing assumed your sitemap was out of date and ignored it.

I have no idea if this is the case or what that threshold is, but it makes sense.

I’ve seen a lot of SEO experts make a change to their URLs and then create all kinds of problems for themselves by leaving the old URL in the XML sitemap.

What about HTML sitemaps?

For starters, you don’t have to worry about submitting an HTML sitemap.

I don’t hate HTML sitemaps, but the same warning about making sure it’s updated whenever you make other changes still applies here.

You don’t want to send conflicting messages to search engines by including your non-canonical versions in some old sitemap that you’ve forgotten about.

Remember, HTML sitemaps are basically just another crawling utility.

If your site architecture is perfect and your code is clean and crawlable, you don’t need one.

Most of the clients I work with use an HTML sitemap as a quick fix due to some weird UX issue preventing search engines from easily accessing the pages.

It works, but it’s not the best way.

I hope this clears up a lot of questions about XML sitemaps.

In an ideal world, we wouldn’t need them.

In the real world though, XML sitemaps can be a powerful tool or a great way to make a bunch of problems with your website.

More resources:

  • How to Optimize XML Sitemaps: 13 SEO Best Practices
  • 7 reasons why an HTML sitemap is still essential
  • Basic Web Basics: A Complete Guide

Featured image: BestForBest / Shutterstock

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