Generating an XML sitemap is only half the job. For search engines to act on it quickly, you need to tell them where it lives. Submitting through Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools puts your sitemap directly in front of the crawlers rather than waiting for them to stumble across it.
This guide covers both consoles end-to-end, including the errors you're likely to see and how to fix them.
Before You Start
You'll need three things in place before submitting:
- A generated sitemap — a valid XML file following the sitemaps.org protocol.
- The sitemap uploaded to your server — it must be publicly accessible at a URL like
https://yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml. - Verified ownership of your property in Search Console. If you haven't done this yet, follow Google's on-screen verification steps (HTML file upload, DNS record, or Google Analytics) before proceeding.
Submitting to Google Search Console
- Open Google Search Console and select your property.
- In the left sidebar, click Sitemaps under the Index section.
- In the Add a new sitemap field, type
sitemap.xml(just the path, not the full domain — Search Console prepends your property URL automatically). - Click Submit.
Google will fetch and parse the file immediately. The status column updates to Success once it has been processed, which typically takes between a few minutes and 24 hours. A success status means the file was fetched and parsed correctly — it does not mean all URLs are indexed yet.
Submitting to Bing Webmaster Tools
Bing's crawler (Bingbot) does not share sitemap data with Google — you need to submit to both separately.
- Open Bing Webmaster Tools and sign in with your Microsoft account.
- Add and verify your site if you haven't already.
- From the left menu, select Sitemaps.
- Click Submit sitemap and enter the full URL — for example,
https://yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml. - Click Submit. Bingbot processes the file within a few hours.
Common Errors and How to Fix Them
"Couldn't fetch sitemap"
Google could not retrieve the file. The most common causes are: the file isn't uploaded yet, the URL path is wrong, or your server is blocking Googlebot's user-agent. Open the URL in a private/incognito browser window to verify it's publicly accessible. Check your robots.txt to make sure the /sitemap.xml path isn't disallowed.
"Sitemap contains URLs not on this property"
The URLs in your sitemap use a different domain or protocol than your verified property. For example, your property is verified as https://example.com but your sitemap contains http://example.com (no S) or https://www.example.com URLs. Add and verify the matching property in Search Console, or regenerate your sitemap so all URLs use the canonical domain.
"Has errors" or "Has warnings"
Some URLs in the sitemap returned errors (404, 500, or redirect) when Googlebot tried to crawl them. Open your sitemap tool, filter by status code, and fix the underlying issues on your site — either restore the missing page, set up a redirect to the correct URL, or remove the dead link from your navigation so the page is no longer discovered. Then re-crawl and resubmit.
When to Resubmit
You don't need to resubmit after every small change — Google re-fetches submitted sitemaps automatically on a schedule. But resubmitting manually is a good signal after:
- A major site restructure (new URL patterns, navigation changes)
- Publishing a large batch of new content
- Fixing a significant number of errors and regenerating the sitemap
- Migrating to a new domain
To resubmit in Search Console, open the Sitemaps report and click Resubmit next to the existing entry — you don't need to enter the URL again. Just make sure you've uploaded the updated file to your server first.