Most sites place their XML sitemap at the root domain followed by /sitemap.xml or /sitemap_index.xml. Go to yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml in your browser—if it loads and shows XML code with URLs, you found it. WordPress sites using Yoast or RankMath typically generate this automatically at that path. If you get a 404 error, check your robots.txt file at yourdomain.com/robots.txt. Properly configured sites include a "Sitemap:" directive pointing to the exact location. You might see something like "Sitemap: https://yourdomain.com/sitemap_index.xml" or a path like "/sitemap-1.xml" if you have multiple sitemaps. Another reliable method is Google Search Console. Log in, select your property, navigate to "Sitemaps" in the left menu, and any submitted sitemaps will be listed there with their full URLs. If nothing appears, either no sitemap was ever submitted or the site doesn't have one generated. Some platforms use non-standard paths. Shopify sites use /sitemap.xml but break it into /products.xml, /pages.xml, and /blogs.xml. Wix and Squarespace auto-generate sitemaps at /sitemap.xml. Custom builds or older CMSs might store them in /sitemaps/, /xml/, or under a subdirectory. Common troubleshooting: if you find an empty sitemap or one listing only a handful of pages when you have hundreds, your sitemap plugin or script is misconfigured. At Ottawa SEO, we see this often with poorly migrated WordPress sites where old sitemap settings weren't cleared. Check for conflicting plugins—running Yoast and RankMath simultaneously can break sitemap generation. Also verify your sitemap isn't blocked by robots.txt or a noindex directive. If you still can't locate it, search your site's source code or backend for "sitemap" references, or use a crawler like Screaming Frog to detect the sitemap link in your site's header or footer. Every indexable site should have one—if yours genuinely doesn't exist, generate one immediately using your CMS plugin or a standalone tool like xml-sitemaps.com for static sites.