Mueller: HTML sitemaps still help, but don't replace XML

Google’s John Mueller and Martin Splitt took up HTML sitemaps in the 1 October 2026 episode of Search Off the Record, Do sitemaps still matter?. Search Engine Journal’s Roger Montti covered that exchange and pointed to the 17 minute mark. We did not hear the episode, so what follows is Mueller’s wording as Montti reported it. The same episode’s AI crawler and Couldn’t fetch answers are in our earlier write-up.

What is an HTML sitemap?#

Per Montti, Splitt asked whether site owners are locked into XML sitemaps or whether HTML ones are also fine. Mueller first noted that the two names confuse people, since many who open an XML file see brackets and assume it is HTML or close to it. He then called an HTML sitemap “almost like a map of your website for users”, and said it is not something that replaces an XML sitemap file.

Can you submit one to Google?#

Not as a sitemap file, in Mueller’s words as quoted by Montti. He said it “can’t be processed one-to-one” like an XML file because it lacks the strict structure, and that it is basically a collection of links. Google’s sitemap overview describes the XML side: a file where you give information about the pages, videos and other files on your site, which search engines like Google read to crawl more efficiently. Check yours with the XML sitemap validator.

Do crawlers follow its links?#

Yes, per Mueller. He said that if someone is crawling your website and finds an HTML sitemap, they can crawl those links like any other link on the site, so that is helpful. Splitt followed up that it still helps crawling, since all the links can be found from that page, only less structured than XML. Mueller answered “Yes, absolutely”, according to the transcript Montti quoted.

What should it contain?#

Mueller said many HTML sitemaps do not include everything. His example was an ecommerce site, which would not list every product but maybe the categories, so people can go to the right place and pick out a product individually. He called it similar to an XML sitemap, but not exactly the same.

Montti reads this as navigation for visitors: an HTML sitemap that gets people to top-level category or topic pages, from which they drill down. That framing is Montti’s interpretation, and he adds that if visitors start using and recommending more pages, Google may pick up on those signals. Treat both as his opinion, not a Google statement.

What does this change?#

Little, which is why this is a low impact item. Mueller did not announce a new feature or change a guideline. The reported answer is that an HTML sitemap is a user-facing page whose links a crawler can follow, and that the XML file is what you submit.

Montti also recalls how site owners used HTML sitemaps before the XML standard, linking one from the footer of every page. That is his background, not something Mueller said. If you already have a sitemap page, the reporting gives no reason to remove it or to treat it as your submitted sitemap. Feeds are a separate route: validate one with the RSS feed validator. The wider indexing and technical SEO hubs cover crawling more broadly.