"One part of sitemaps is that Google has to be keen on indexing more content from the site. If Google's not convinced that there's new & important content to index, it won't use the sitemap. We know Google does not index everything, in fact, very few sites have all of its pages indexed by Google (maybe unless it is a 5 page website). So adding a sitemap file, while useful for many reasons, doesn't mean those pages will be indexed."
"In the extreme case where Google can't crawl at all, then of course at some point pages start to drop out of the index. For everything else, our systems tend to find a good balance. I don't think it's possible to define an absolute cut-off point, & sites that care tend to watch out for speed too.- John Mueller (@johnmu.com) February 21, 2026 at 4:03 AM"
Google uses sitemaps as a signal but will not necessarily index every URL listed. If Google's systems are not convinced a site contains new and important content, the sitemap may be ignored. Most sites do not have every page indexed; indexing depends on content quality, crawlability, site speed, and duplicate content. If Google cannot crawl a site at all, pages can drop out of the index. Crawl speed estimates can be calculated, but slow crawling often reflects underlying problems. Maintaining fast, crawlable, and unique content increases the likelihood of indexing.
Read at Search Engine Roundtable
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