To submit a sitemap in Google Search Console, post the sitemap file on your site, open the Sitemaps report, paste the sitemap URL into the Add a new sitemap box and click Submit. Google should fetch it straight away, and the report then shows whether it was read successfully, had errors or couldn't be fetched.
Here's the catch most people miss. Submitting doesn't upload anything to Google; it just tells Google where the file lives on your site. And deleting a sitemap from the report doesn't make Google forget it or the URLs in it. If you want Google to stop visiting those URLs, you need a robots.txt rule, a noindex response header, or to delete the file itself.
Do you even need the Sitemaps report?
Google's support page is refreshingly honest about this. If your site runs on a hosting service such as Squarespace or Wix, it probably manages your sitemap for you and you don't need the report at all. And if you've got a small site, which Google defines as about 500 pages or fewer, where every page can be reached by following links from your homepage, you probably don't need a sitemap either. Request indexing of your homepage and leave it there.
How to submit a sitemap
- Make sure you have owner permissions on the property. If you don't, list the sitemap in your robots.txt file instead.
- Post the sitemap on your site, ideally at the site root, in one of the accepted formats.
- Test that Googlebot can reach it by running a live URL inspection and checking that Page fetch is Successful. The sitemap mustn't sit behind a login.
- Open the Sitemaps report, paste the URL you tested into Add a new sitemap, and click Submit.
- If the status isn't Success, click the row for details of what went wrong.
- Check back now and then to confirm Google can still fetch and process it.
Once a sitemap's been read, Google recrawls it on its own schedule, separate from the rest of your site. You only need to resubmit if you make big changes or after you've fixed an error. You can also manage everything through the Search Console Sitemaps API, which offers the same information as the report.
What each status in the report means
The top-level report shows the status of the latest request for each sitemap, as of October 2026.
| Status | What Google means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Success | Fetched and read with no errors. All URLs are queued for crawling. | Nothing. Check back occasionally. |
| Has errors | Fetched, but with one or more errors. URLs that parsed cleanly are still queued. | Click the sitemap to see the list of errors and fix them. |
| Couldn't fetch | Google couldn't retrieve the sitemap file at all. | Check robots.txt, the URL, manual actions and server errors, then resubmit. |
Click into any sitemap and you'll see its type (Sitemap, Sitemap index, RSS, Atom or Unknown), when you last submitted it, when Google last read it, and how many page URLs it found. For a sitemap index, that count covers every URL in all its child sitemaps, with duplicates counted once.
Don't read the discovered count as an indexing count. Google says there's no guarantee a URL found in a sitemap will be crawled or indexed. To see how many made it, filter the Page indexing report by sitemap.
Why your sitemap isn't in the report
This trips up a lot of site owners. The report only shows sitemaps submitted through the report or the API, so a sitemap Google found through your robots.txt won't appear, even if Google's using it. It also only shows sitemaps in the current property, so check you're not mixing up http and https, or www and non-www versions.
There are two more limits. The report shows a maximum of 1,000 submitted sitemaps, not in submission order, and there's no way to see the rest in Search Console. And while you can include image, video or news URLs in a sitemap, the report doesn't show any data for those.
Fixing Couldn't fetch and other errors
When a sitemap can't be fetched, Google lists the usual causes: the sitemap is blocked by robots.txt, the site has an unresolved manual action, the URL is wrong and returns a 404, the server was unavailable, or there's low crawl demand for the sitemap. Google ties crawl demand to the quality of the site's content.
- Copy the sitemap URL from the report's details page.
- Paste it into the URL Inspection tool and press Enter.
- Click Live test.
- Expand Page availability and look for Crawl allowed set to Yes and Page fetch set to Successful.
If the sitemap fetches but has errors, the common ones are size and structure. A sitemap can't be larger than 50MB uncompressed or list more than 50,000 URLs; split it and use a sitemap index if it does. A sitemap index can't list other sitemap indexes. URLs need to sit on the same domain and at the same level or below the sitemap, so a sitemap without www can't list www URLs. Use absolute URLs, not relative ones, and make sure attribute quotes are straight, not the curly ones word processors add.
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If a fetch keeps failing, Google retries for a few days and then stops. Fix the problem and resubmit to start it again. A temporary processing error usually clears on its own, so only resubmit if it's still there after several hours.
My verdict on the Sitemaps report
For a small site on a hosted platform, I wouldn't bother. For anything bigger, submit one sitemap index, check it says Success, then use the Page indexing report to see what's getting in. If you don't know where your sitemap lives, here's how to find a website's sitemap, and the URL Inspection tool is where you'll diagnose most fetch errors.
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Frequently asked questions
How do I submit a sitemap to Google Search Console?
Post the sitemap on your site, open the Sitemaps report, paste the sitemap URL into the Add a new sitemap box and click Submit. You need owner permissions on the property.
Does a small website need a sitemap?
Google says probably not if your site has about 500 pages or fewer and every page can be reached by following links from your homepage. Sites on hosts such as Squarespace or Wix usually have one managed for them.
What does Couldn't fetch mean in Search Console sitemaps?
Google couldn't retrieve the sitemap file itself. Common causes are a robots.txt block, a wrong URL returning a 404, an unresolved manual action or a server error.
Why isn't my sitemap showing in the Sitemaps report?
The report only shows sitemaps submitted through the report or the API for the current property. Sitemaps found through robots.txt aren't listed, and http, https, www and non-www are separate properties.
Does removing a sitemap stop Google crawling those URLs?
No. Deleting a sitemap removes it from the report, but Google won't forget the sitemap or its URLs. Use a robots.txt rule if you want Google to stop visiting them.
