Our site map is here https://bookcurl.com/sitemap.xml and contains multiple sub site maps: products (approx 800 sitemaps), collections (1), pages (1) and blog (1)
In GMC this is reported as processed successfully.
However the only one it shows the blog sub sitemap under the heading “Sitemaps read”.
Google certainly isn’t crawling or indexing most of my products.
However I am able to manually submit the sub site maps - and these are processed correctly.
Screenshots attached.
I think the master sitemap is valid as a) it checks out via various online checkers and b) one of the sub sitemaps within it has been processed
I have removed the master sitemaps and resubmitted several times over the months that I have been trying to resolve this.
Any idea why google is not processing the sub site maps?
I have shopify several times and they have been unhelpful and have tried their suggestions.
Submitting children sitemaps should not hurt, however, they have these from= and to= parameters which will change, so your submitted sitemaps will not reflect current situation.
You have a lot of products, so building entire map and indexing it may take time.
Generally, though sitemaps are good as a starter, for a site which was indexed at least partially, they are not that critical.
If your site’s pages are properly linked, Google can usually discover most of your site. Proper linking means that all pages that you deem important can be reached through some form of navigation, be that your site’s menu or links that you placed on pages.
I have removed the master sitemaps and resubmitted several times over the months that I have been trying to resolve this.
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That is one of the most common mistakes people do when trying to get onto Google Search. You submitted the sitemap. That is approved. It’s done. You can submit subsitemaps if you wish, and they will be approved also. But every single page on your site in in a queue and a certain page’s queue position does not change. You can request pages be indexed, and re-request, it will not change its position in the queue. If you have 25 thousand products, you’re gonna have to be more patient.
Interestingly Shopify support advised me to resubmit So I did. However it appears to have neither helped nor hindered.
There have months long periods where I did not resubmit and all that was shown as being processed was the single empty blog subsitemap - as per now.
Is there any way to verify that “every single page on your site in in a queue”?
We have 1.6million products and I have never seen a single product from the main/subsitemap that is shown in GSC discovery as being part of a site map.
However those subsitemaps that I submit manually get processed immediately and all the products within them are shown in GSC discovery as being part of a site map.
So google is operating VERY differently with subsitemaps that are part of the main sitemap, and subsitemaps that I manually submit….
Your main sitemap is valid. The reason Google hasn’t processed all your product sub-sitemaps is not an error but a matter of crawl prioritization. Google treats sitemaps as a hint, not a command, and will not process hundreds of new sitemaps at once.
The best solution is two-part. For getting your products into Google Shopping, install and use the Google & YouTube app in Shopify to create a direct product feed to GMC, which is more reliable than a sitemap.
For organic search indexing, use the URL Inspection tool in Google Search Console for your key product pages and click ‘Request Indexing’ to encourage a faster crawl.
This, combined with patience as Google works through your large site, is the correct path forward.
And so on. The answer is – google does not always process your sitemap
To get better insight I’d go to that forum. To force indexing, I’d probably submit your children sitemaps manually.
And, as mentioned above – setting up a feed to merchant center is a great way to push your products. Getting a structured product data instead of parsing thousands of HTML pages should work better.
From what I know, it is not suggested to submit sitemap too frequently under a short period, it may block and affect Google normal indexing process sometimes. Since you already manually resubmit related page sitemaps, you can wait and see the further progress. It will be more efficient if consider contacting a Google Support Agent and get more advice specifically, as this is related to how Google works.
It might not hurt but once you submit the child sitemaps that contain the from and to parameters, you’d need to remember to submit the updated one after you add a collection, product or page. If you don’t remember to do that, the new thing you added will eventually get indexed when Google finds it. Best practice (provided in the Google documentation) is to only submit the sitemap index file. If you need a page or product to be indexed quickly, you can submit the sub-sitemap but you should remove it after the page/product has been indexed, especially if it has the url parameters.
You’re right — this is a common (and frustrating) issue with Shopify’s auto-generated sitemap.xml when stores have a large number of product URLs (like your ~800+ product sitemap splits). Let’s break down what’s happening and what you can do:
What’s Happening
Shopify’s main sitemap (/sitemap.xml) automatically lists multiple sub-sitemaps:
/sitemap_products_1.xml
/sitemap_collections_1.xml
/sitemap_pages_1.xml
/sitemap_blogs_1.xml
For large stores, Shopify paginates product sitemaps — e.g. /sitemap_products_1.xml, /sitemap_products_2.xml, etc.
While the main sitemap is valid, Google sometimes fails to queue and process all sub-sitemaps from the master index (especially when there are hundreds), which results in only a few being recognized under “Sitemaps read” in Google Search Console.
This is not an error in your sitemap, but a processing limitation or de-prioritization from Google’s crawler when handling many sub-sitemaps automatically generated by Shopify.
→ You don’t need to add all 800; just add the first 10–20 to help Google “learn” the structure. Once Google starts processing them, it usually discovers the rest automatically.
2. Request indexing for key products
Use Search Console → URL inspection → Request indexing for a few representative products.
That can trigger Google’s crawler to revisit the associated product sitemap.
3. Strengthen internal linking
Make sure all products are linked from:
At least one collection
At least one menu / navigation path
A few internal links from blogs or pages
Google prioritizes URLs it can discover through normal crawling over just sitemaps.
4. Avoid submitting duplicate sitemap indexes
If you’ve resubmitted the same sitemap.xml multiple times, Google may delay reprocessing.
Remove duplicates, wait a few days, then submit again only once.
5. Check your robots.txt
Ensure nothing like this appears:
Disallow: /collections/
Disallow: /products/
You can check it at https://bookcurl.com/robots.txt.
Summary
Your sitemap is valid Google is ignoring most sub-sitemaps due to indexing load or crawl prioritization Fix: Manually submit product sitemaps, ensure strong internal linking, and avoid over-resubmitting the master file
Give it 2–4 weeks after manual submission — indexing typically picks up gradually.
You can check out our Shopify Partner profile — we’ve built and shared several free Shopify app solutions to help store owners. Feel free to explore our profile and see how our apps can make your Shopify experience better!
It looks like your main sitemap (https://bookcurl.com/sitemap.xml) is valid, but Google isn’t consistently processing all the sub-sitemaps. This can happen sometimes with larger Shopify stores where the parent sitemap points to hundreds of sub-sitemaps.
You can try these steps:
Resubmit the parent sitemap (sitemap.xml)
Remove it from Search Console and re-add it after a day or so.
This forces Google to re-fetch all linked sub-sitemaps.
What’s Happening
What You Can Do
Summary
Your sitemap is valid
Google is ignoring most sub-sitemaps due to indexing load or crawl prioritization
Fix: Manually submit product sitemaps, ensure strong internal linking, and avoid over-resubmitting the master file
You can check out our Shopify Partner profile — we’ve built and shared several free Shopify app solutions to help store owners. Feel free to explore our profile and see how our apps can make your Shopify experience better!