Understanding page-sitemap.xml: A focused sitemap for your website pages

Introduction

A page-sitemap.xml is a focused XML sitemap that lists the pages on a website. By providing a centralized map of your site’s pages, it helps search engines discover and crawl important content more efficiently. This can be especially useful for larger sites with many pages or sections that update independently of other content.

What is page-sitemap.xml?

In practice, a page-sitemap.xml is simply an XML file that conforms to the sitemap protocol and contains URLs for pages on your site. The name page-sitemap.xml is a convention that signals the file’s scope: pages or static pages, as opposed to other content types like posts, images, or videos. The exact structure follows the standard sitemap format and can include optional metadata such as last modified date, change frequency, and priority.

Differences from sitemap.xml

A typical site may have multiple sitemap files or a single sitemap.xml that lists various content types. A page-sitemap.xml focuses specifically on page URLs. Other sitemaps might cover blog posts, products, images, or videos. Using a separate page sitemap can help organize large sites and can be referenced in a sitemap index alongside other sitemaps.

When to use a page-sitemap.xml

• Your site has a large number of pages that evolve at different rates.
• You want a clean, page-focused sitemap for crawlers and editors.
• You maintain separate sitemaps for pages, posts, and media for organizational or technical reasons.
• You are using tools or platforms that generate type-specific sitemaps and expose a page-sitemap.xml endpoint.

Note: Google can consume multiple sitemaps via a sitemap index, so you can keep a page-sitemap.xml alongside other sitemaps.

Creating and maintaining a page-sitemap.xml

You can create a page-sitemap.xml manually, or more commonly with a CMS plugin or SEO tool:

• Generate the file with your CMS or a sitemap generator and place it at the root (for example, https://example.com/page-sitemap.xml).
• Include the URLs of pages you want crawled, optionally with lastmod, changefreq, and priority.
• If your site uses multiple content types, consider a sitemap index that references several sitemaps (including page-sitemap.xml).

Keep the file up to date by regenerating after major page updates or site restructures.

Validation and submission

• Validate the sitemap with Google Search Console’s sitemap tool or other validators to catch syntax errors.
• Submit the page-sitemap.xml URL in Google Search Console under Sitemaps or equivalent tools.
• Monitor for crawl errors and ensure the pages listed are accessible and not blocked by robots.txt.

Best practices

• Keep URL entries clean and canonical; avoid listing duplicate or redirected pages.
• Follow the standard limits: up to 50,000 URLs per sitemap file and a maximum size of 50 MB uncompressed; gzip compression is common for large sitemaps.
• Include lastmod for pages that change, but be cautious about misrepresenting update times.
• Use a sitemap index if you have multiple sitemaps (pages, posts, media, etc.).

Common pitfalls

• Listing pages blocked by robots.txt or noindex directives.
• Outdated entries that no longer exist or redirect elsewhere.
• Exceeding per-sitemap limits without using an index.
• Relying on a single sitemap for all content types when a type-specific sitemap is more effective.

Conclusion

A page-sitemap.xml can improve crawl efficiency for larger sites by organizing page URLs in a dedicated file. When used thoughtfully—with proper validation, timely updates, and alignment with a sitemap index—it helps search engines discover your pages and keep indexing current.