XML format
Sitemap index
A sitemap of sitemaps, used once a site outgrows a single 50,000-URL file.
A sitemap index shares the sitemap namespace but uses a <sitemapindex> root containing <sitemap> entries, each pointing at a child sitemap's URL. Indexes cannot nest: a child must be a sitemap, not another index.
Indexes fail in a way plain sitemaps do not — a child URL that 404s or redirects breaks that entire branch of the site's coverage while the index itself stays perfectly valid XML.
Constraints that bite
- At most 50,000 <sitemap> entries and 50 MB uncompressed.
- Children must be sitemaps; an index pointing at another index is invalid.
- Every child <loc> should return 200 directly — redirects and 404s silently drop coverage.
- A child sitemap's lastmod in the index should reflect the child's own content, not the index's build.
- Root element
<sitemapindex>- Media type
application/xml- Extensions
.xml, .xml.gz- Namespaces
http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9
- XMLDir label
sitemapindex
Specification: sitemaps.org protocol
A minimal valid document
Every example on this site is checked against the same parser the workspace uses, so what you see below is known to be well-formed.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<sitemapindex xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
<sitemap>
<loc>https://example.com/sitemap-pages.xml</loc>
<lastmod>2026-07-20</lastmod>
</sitemap>
</sitemapindex>Get started
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