Google has officially deprecated the Sitemaps ping endpoints. Now, when you try to access it, Google responds, “Sitemaps ping is deprecated,” with a link to the post about it going away.

Here is a screenshot of the error:

Google did tell us several months ago that it will stop working around now and Google was true to its word.

Nilaye Thakrar, the lead SEO at Staples.ca, spotted this and posted about it on LinkedIn.

Google originally said it was removing this feature because they are “not very useful” and the “vast majority of the submissions lead to spam.” Google use to recommend you use this feature to get new content discovered faster by Google Search.

So those that used this sitemap ping feature can no longer. I have a lot more details in our original story.

Also spotted at:

Sitemap ping finally died and no one noticed https://t.co/O7Gl06ozou

— Andy Beard (@AndyBeard) January 9, 2024

Forum discussion at LinkedIn.