Submit Sitemaps and Monitor Indexing

An XML sitemap is a file that lists the pages on your site and when they last changed. Search engines use it as a guide to find and crawl your content, which is especially helpful for new pages or pages with few internal links.

No. Apex® generates your XML sitemap automatically, so search engines always have a current list of pages to crawl. When you publish or update pages, the sitemap reflects those changes without manual editing.

Verify your site in Google Search Console, open the Sitemaps report under Indexing, enter your sitemap URL and select Submit. Google will then process the file and show its status along with the number of pages it discovered.

Verification proves to Google that you own or manage the site, which unlocks the reports and tools for it. Without verification you cannot submit a sitemap or see indexing and crawl data for your domain in Search Console.

Check back in the Sitemaps report in Google Search Console after submitting. It shows whether the sitemap was processed successfully and how many pages Google discovered from it. An error status usually points to an incorrect URL or an unreachable file.

No. A sitemap helps search engines discover your pages, but each search engine decides what to index based on factors such as content quality, duplication and technical access. Use the Pages report in Search Console to see which pages are indexed and why others are not.

Open the Pages report in Google Search Console. It lists indexed pages and groups the rest by reason, such as duplicates, redirects, blocked pages or pages crawled but not yet indexed. Each reason suggests what to fix before requesting indexing again.

The Search Console integration in Apex® lets you keep an eye on search results, indexing and crawl activity in one place. That makes it easier to notice when pages drop out of the index or when crawling slows after a site change.

IndexNow is a protocol that lets a website notify participating search engines as soon as a page is added, updated or removed. Apex® supports IndexNow, so new pages can be discovered faster than waiting for the next scheduled crawl.

llms.txt is a plain text file that points AI crawlers and language models to the most useful content on your site. An XML sitemap lists every page for search engines, while llms.txt highlights key pages for AI systems. Apex® supports both, so new pages are easier to discover from launch.

Usually not. Once Google knows your sitemap URL, it rechecks the file over time, and because Apex® keeps the sitemap current, new pages appear in it automatically. Resubmitting can still be useful after a major site change or migration.