How to Submit a Sitemap to Google in 2026 (Sitemap Ping Is Dead)
You can’t ping your sitemap to Google anymore. Google retired the ping endpoint in June 2023, and since early 2024 the URL returns a plain 404. The one-click pinger that lived on this page stopped working along with it, so I removed the form. The replacement is simpler than you’d expect: submit your sitemap once in Search Console and let Google recheck it on its own schedule.
What changed on this page: removed the dead ping form, rewrote the submission steps for the current Search Console, and added a section on tools for sitemap submission and URL indexing.
Table of Contents
Why the One-Click Sitemap Pinger Is Gone
For years, you could hit google.com/ping?sitemap=your-sitemap.xml and Google would fetch your sitemap within minutes. This page hosted a small form that did exactly that. Google announced the deprecation in June 2023 and shut the endpoint down in early 2024. I checked again before rewriting this page: it returns a 404. Bing dropped its ping endpoint too, in favor of IndexNow.
Google’s reasoning was blunt: most pings were spam, so it stopped listening. Google now re-reads your sitemap on its own schedule, roughly tied to how often your site publishes. The one signal you control is the lastmod date in the sitemap file. Keep it accurate and Google trusts it; inflate it on every minor edit and Google learns to ignore it.
How to Submit a Sitemap to Google (What Works Now)
Submit your sitemap once in Google Search Console. That’s the whole job now. Google keeps rechecking it afterward, so you don’t resubmit when you publish.
- Open Google Search Console and select your property. New to it? My Google Search Console setup guide covers verification in a few minutes.
- Click “Sitemaps” in the left sidebar.
- Enter your sitemap URL (like
https://example.com/sitemap_index.xml) under “Add a new sitemap” and click Submit.
Two backups worth setting up the same day:
- robots.txt. Add a
Sitemap: https://example.com/sitemap_index.xmlline to your robots.txt file. Every crawler reads robots.txt, so this covers Google, Bing, and everything else without any account. - Single URL in a hurry. Use URL Inspection in Search Console: paste the URL and click “Request Indexing”. There’s a small daily quota, so spend it on pages that matter.
What Is a Sitemap?
A sitemap is an XML file that lists the URLs on your site, each with a last-modified date. Crawlers read it to find every page worth indexing without having to discover each one by following links. Think of it as the index page you write for bots instead of people.
One file can hold up to 50,000 URLs. Bigger sites split it into a sitemap index (like the one above) that points to smaller child sitemaps for posts, pages, and categories. You submit only the index file; crawlers follow it to the rest.
How to Create a Sitemap
On WordPress, you already have one. Rank Math and Yoast SEO generate a sitemap at /sitemap_index.xml and update it automatically on every publish. Even without a plugin, WordPress core ships one at /wp-sitemap.xml. If you’re picking a plugin for this, see my comparison of the best WordPress SEO plugins.
For static or custom-built sites, XML-Sitemaps.com generates a file for up to 500 pages free, and Screaming Frog‘s free tier crawls 500 URLs and exports an XML sitemap. Upload the file to your site root and add the robots.txt line from above.
Online Tools for Sitemap Submission and URL Indexing
Since the ping era ended, “submitting” means either a webmaster console or the IndexNow protocol. These six cover everything I actually use:
| Tool | What it does | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Google Search Console | Sitemap submission plus Request Indexing for single URLs. The only official channel for Google. | Free |
| Bing Webmaster Tools | Sitemap submission, a URL Submission API, and one-click import of your Search Console properties. | Free |
| IndexNow | Instant URL push to Bing, Yandex, Naver, and Seznam. One API key file on your server. | Free |
| Rank Math Instant Indexing | Automates IndexNow pings from WordPress on publish and update; can also wire up Google’s Indexing API. | Free |
| Google Indexing API | Direct push to Google, officially limited to job-posting and livestream pages. | Free |
| XML-Sitemaps.com | Generates a sitemap file for non-WordPress sites, up to 500 pages on the free tier. | Free / paid |
Two caveats before you install anything. IndexNow does nothing for Google; Google has confirmed it doesn’t use the protocol. And the Google Indexing API is officially restricted to JobPosting and BroadcastEvent pages. Plugins will happily push regular blog posts through it, but treat that as unsupported behavior, not an indexing strategy.
The practical WordPress setup: Rank Math or Yoast generates the sitemap, IndexNow pushes new URLs to Bing and friends automatically, and you keep Search Console’s Request Indexing for the occasional page Google needs to see today. Nothing else earns its slot.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does pinging your sitemap to Google still work?
No. Google deprecated the ping endpoint in June 2023 and shut it down in early 2024; the URL now returns a 404. Any one-click tool that promises to ping your sitemap to Google is hitting a dead endpoint. Submit the sitemap in Google Search Console instead.
How often does Google check my sitemap?
On its own schedule, loosely tied to how often your site changes. You can’t force a re-crawl anymore. Keep the lastmod dates in your sitemap accurate; Google has said it relies on that field when deciding what to re-fetch, and it ignores the field on sites that fake it.
How do I get a single URL indexed quickly?
Use URL Inspection in Google Search Console: paste the URL and click Request Indexing. There’s a small daily quota, so save it for pages that matter. For Bing, Yandex, Naver, and Seznam, one IndexNow ping covers all of them at once.
Do I need to resubmit my sitemap when I publish a new post?
No. Your SEO plugin updates the sitemap file automatically, and Google re-reads it periodically. Submitting once in Search Console is enough. Resubmitting the same sitemap URL doesn’t speed anything up; it just refreshes the report screen.
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