XML sitemap examples, explained line by line

The file starts with an XML declaration specifying version 1.0 and UTF-8 encoding. The root element is urlset with xmlns set to http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9. Inside it, each page gets a url element containing loc, for example https://www.example.com/pricing, and optionally lastmod, for example 2026-10-21. URLs must be absolute, use the canonical protocol and host, and escape special characters such as ampersands.

Only loc is required in each entry.

A sitemap index uses a sitemapindex root element in the same namespace, containing sitemap elements, each with a loc pointing to a child sitemap and an optional lastmod. Use one when you exceed 50,000 URLs or 50 MB uncompressed in a file, or to split sitemaps by page type so Search Console reports indexing for each type separately. serionflow.com uses an index with separate child sitemaps for different page families.

Extensions add namespaces to the urlset element. The image extension adds image:image with image:loc inside a url entry, useful for images loaded in ways crawlers might miss. The video extension adds video:video with title, description, thumbnail, and content or player location. The news extension, for Google News publishers, adds publication name, language, publication date, and title for recent articles. For hreflang, add xhtml:link elements with rel="alternate", hreflang, and href for every language version, including the page itself.

List only URLs you want indexed: no redirects, no noindex pages, no non-canonical variants, no 404s. Keep lastmod honest; changing it on every build without content changes teaches Google to ignore it. Reference the sitemap or index in robots.txt and submit it in Search Console. Generate it automatically from the source of truth for your pages. Our free sitemap checker validates format and flags URLs that redirect, 404, or carry noindex. SerionFlow is the wrong tool for writing your site's main sitemap; generate that from your CMS or build.