XML Sitemap

An XML sitemap is a file — typically located at /sitemap.xml — that lists the URLs on your website in a format designed for search engine crawlers. It can also include metadata like when a page was last modified and how often it changes, though search engines treat that data as a hint rather than a directive. The format is defined by the Sitemaps protocol, which Google, Bing, and other major search engines support.

The practical value of a sitemap is discoverability. Large sites with complex internal linking may have pages that are hard to reach through crawling alone. A sitemap gives search engines a direct inventory of what exists and where to find it. For smaller sites with solid internal linking, it’s less critical, but it’s still good practice.

WordPress Sitemap Behavior

WordPress has included a built-in XML sitemap since version 5.5. Many sites also use plugins like Yoast SEO or Rank Math, which generate more configurable sitemaps — excluding certain post types, adding image sitemaps, splitting large sites into sitemap index files, and so on. When you migrate away from WordPress, the sitemap at your old domain continues to exist until you either update your hosting or take the site down. Search engines will eventually stop crawling the old sitemap once they see the 301 redirects pointing elsewhere, but it’s worth having your new sitemap submitted before go-live.

Sitemaps in Statamic

Statamic doesn’t include sitemap generation out of the box, but there are addons that handle it cleanly. The most common approach is to use a community addon or to generate the sitemap from a route in your application using Antlers or Blade templates. Since Statamic gives you direct control over your routes and collections, it’s straightforward to build a sitemap that includes exactly the entries you want indexed and nothing else.

One thing worth noting: if you’re using static caching or deploying Statamic as a static site, your sitemap generation process needs to account for that. A dynamically generated sitemap won’t be available if your entire site is served as flat files unless you generate it at build time.

After migrating, submit your new sitemap in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools. This helps search engines discover your new URL structure faster, especially if you’ve changed URL patterns and have 301 redirects in place.

For more context on SEO considerations during a migration, see Is Statamic good for SEO? and Will I lose my SEO rankings when migrating from WordPress?.