Changelog

All notable changes to SitemapHost are documented here. Dates reflect when features became available in production.

January 2025

IndexNow Protocol Support

SitemapHost now supports the IndexNow protocol for instant search engine notification. When you upload or update a sitemap, SitemapHost automatically pings Bing, Yandex, and other participating search engines.

• Automatic IndexNow key generation and hosting at /.well-known/indexnow-key.txt
• Batch URL submission on every sitemap update
• Per-domain enable/disable toggle
• Submission status tracking in the dashboard
• Manual ping endpoint for ad-hoc URL submissions

Hreflang Validation Improvements

Improved validation for hreflang entries in the upload API:

• Stricter ISO 639-1 language code validation
• Warning for missing x-default entries
• Detection of self-referencing hreflang loops

December 2024

Video Sitemap Support

Full video sitemap support with all Google-recommended fields:

• Video metadata: thumbnail, title, description, duration, view count, rating
• Content and player location URLs
• Geo and platform restrictions
• Publication and expiration dates
• Family-friendly and live stream flags
• Tag and category support

Dashboard Improvements

• Sitemap preview: view generated XML directly in the dashboard
• Improved domain status indicators with real-time SSL provisioning progress
• Bulk URL upload via CSV in the dashboard interface

November 2024

Google Search Console Integration

Connect your Google Search Console account for automatic sitemap submission:

• OAuth-based GSC connection (no API keys to manage)
• Automatic sitemap submission on every upload
• Indexing status tracking directly in the SitemapHost dashboard
• Support for multiple GSC properties per account

Named Sitemaps

Organize your URLs into named sitemaps for better GSC insights:

• Create separate sitemaps per content type (pages, blog, products, images)
• Automatic sitemap index generation
• Independent updates per named sitemap
• Auto-detection of content type based on URL patterns

October 2024

Image Sitemap Support

Full image sitemap support with Google-recommended metadata:

• Image loc, title, caption, geo_location, and license fields
• Up to 1,000 images per URL
• Proper xmlns:image namespace in generated XML
• CSV upload format for bulk image metadata

API Key Management

• New API key creation and revocation in the dashboard
• Key usage tracking with last-used timestamps
• Key prefix display (sk_live_...) for identification

September 2024

Initial Launch

SitemapHost launches with core sitemap hosting features:

• Custom domain support -- Serve sitemaps from your own subdomain via CNAME
• Automatic SSL -- Free certificates provisioned via Cloudflare for SaaS
• Automatic splitting -- Large sitemaps split at 1K, 10K, or 50K URL thresholds
• Global CDN -- Sitemaps served from Cloudflare's worldwide edge network
• REST API -- Full programmatic access for sitemap generation and domain management
• Search engine notifications -- IndexNow for Bing/Yandex (Google ping was later deprecated in June 2023)
• Dashboard -- Web interface for domain management and sitemap uploads

Launch Plans