In short. Shopware uses compressed, cached child files behind a public sitemap.xml index.
Definition: Shopware compresses and caches its standard sitemap in the file system. When a shop has many products and categories, Shopware splits the sitemap into multiple files and exposes
sitemap.xmlas the public index file.
Key facts
- Shopware says its standard sitemap is compressed, cached in the file system, split into multiple files for shops with many products and categories, and able to be generated in the background in its sitemap documentation.
- Google's sitemap-index documentation describes an index file as a way to submit many sitemaps at once after a large sitemap has been split into multiple sitemaps.
- Google's sitemap construction documentation says a single sitemap is limited to 50MB uncompressed or 50,000 URLs, and larger files must be broken into multiple sitemaps.
Why are the files compressed and split?
Compression reduces the size of the generated sitemap files. Shopware documents the compression and the file-system cache together, so the compressed files are an implementation of the generated sitemap rather than a second sitemap type.
The same page says that shops with many products and categories receive multiple sitemap files. Google describes the corresponding general pattern: when a sitemap exceeds its size limits, split it into smaller sitemaps and use a sitemap index to submit many sitemaps at once. Shopware's page does not name the generated child-file suffixes or give their exact filesystem path.
What is the public sitemap.xml file?
Shopware states that it does not provide a visitor sitemap at the /sitemap suffix after the domain. It describes the index file Sitemap.xml as being created for evaluation by Google. The public address shown by the documentation is:
https://mydomain.com/sitemap.xml
The page also says that Shopware automatically generates sitemap.xml and that the sitemap can be used for relevant search engine providers. Therefore, a request to the public file reaches the entry point for the generated sitemap set, while the files listed inside it hold the split contents.
How does an index relate to its child sitemaps?
Google's documentation says that a sitemap index is an XML file that lists sitemaps. Its example lists two sitemaps, which is the structure that explains links from a public index to several compressed child files. The index is still XML even when the referenced sitemap files use compression.
The referenced sitemaps must be hosted on the same site as the sitemap index, unless cross-site submission is configured. Google also places them in the same directory as the index or lower in the site hierarchy. These rules give you two concrete checks when a Shopware index points to child URLs: compare their host and check their path relationship.
What should you check in a Shopware installation?
Open the public sitemap.xml URL and read its XML entries. Confirm that it returns the index described by Shopware, then follow each referenced child URL and check that the response is available to the relevant search engine provider. The Shopware documentation gives the public URL as https://mydomain.com/sitemap.xml and says the index is generated automatically.
If the sitemap is refreshed by the scheduled strategy, Shopware stores it in the file system after a scheduled task generates it on a regular basis. With the live strategy, Shopware creates a sitemap when none is present and recreates it after the configured Refresh time has elapsed. A manually configured shop can generate it with:
php bin/console sitemap:generate
Related terms
FAQ
Are the compressed files a problem?
No. Shopware documents compression as part of its standard sitemap generation and says the sitemap is split into multiple files for shops with many products and categories. Google's sitemap-index documentation describes the same index-and-child-file structure for large sitemaps.
Should you submit every compressed child file separately?
The public sitemap.xml file is the index that Shopware creates for evaluation by Google. Google documents the index as the way to submit many sitemaps at once, so the index is the relevant public entry point.
Why can a Shopware index contain more than one file?
Shopware says the sitemap is split into multiple files for shops with many products and categories. Google says a sitemap index lists sitemaps, so several child URLs are the expected result of that split.
Sources
- Shopware, "Shopware 6 - Settings - Sitemap", undated
- Google Search Central, "Manage your sitemaps with a sitemap index file", 10 December 2025
- Google Search Central, "Build and submit a sitemap", 8 July 2026
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