Add Academy and Handbook sitemap submissions

[glenn-jocher]

Summary

• add Academy, Handbook, and Platform root sitemap URLs to Google Search Console submission
• submit the new subdomain sitemaps through the verified sc-domain:ultralytics.com Search Console property
• keep IndexNow submissions scoped to docs URLs because Academy and Handbook do not currently serve the IndexNow key file
• fail the Google sitemap step if Search Console rejects any sitemap, so missing property access is visible

Validation

• actionlint .github/workflows/sitemaps.yml
• python3 embedded workflow Python compile check
• git diff --check
• manual Submit Sitemaps workflow run 25250597720: GSC submissions for Academy, Handbook, and Platform passed

Remaining blocker

• IndexNow key files still return 404 on Academy and Handbook, so this PR remains draft until those hosts serve the key file or we decide to ship GSC first and add IndexNow later.

🛠️ PR Summary

_{Made with ❤️ by Ultralytics Actions}

🌟 Summary

Improves the sitemap submission workflow to support more Ultralytics sites, better detect failures, and make URL indexing updates more reliable 🚀

📊 Key Changes

• Added sitemap submission support for more Ultralytics domains, including academy.ultralytics.com, handbook.ultralytics.com, and platform.ultralytics.com 🌐
• Refactored sitemap handling into a domain-to-path mapping, making the workflow easier to extend and maintain 🛠️
• Updated Google sitemap submission logic to return success or failure for each sitemap and collect failed submissions ✅❌
• Added a hard failure if any sitemap submission fails, instead of silently continuing, improving visibility into indexing issues 🚨
• Used the sc-domain:ultralytics.com property for select subdomains when submitting to Google Search Console, aligning with domain-level verification 🔍
• Fixed environment variable writing by safely quoting $GITHUB_ENV, improving shell robustness 🧩
• Updated the IndexNow URL filtering helper to accept the host explicitly, making the logic cleaner and more reusable 🔄
• Kept IndexNow submissions focused on changed pages for docs.ultralytics.com, while leaving room to submit all URLs when needed 📄

🎯 Purpose & Impact

• Ensures more Ultralytics web properties are included in search engine discovery and indexing, not just the main docs and website 📈
• Makes CI failures easier to catch and act on, helping prevent missed sitemap submissions from going unnoticed 🛡️
• Improves maintainability of the workflow, so adding or updating domains/languages is simpler in the future ✨
• Reduces the chance of indexing delays by clearly reporting failed sitemap submissions and stopping on errors ⏱️
• Keeps IndexNow updates efficient by submitting only recently changed docs pages by default, which can reduce unnecessary indexing requests 🎯
• Overall, this PR strengthens search indexing automation and makes site update handling more dependable for users and maintainers alike 🤝

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Project	Deployment	Actions	Updated (UTC)
docs	Ready	Preview, Comment	May 2, 2026 11:25am

[UltralyticsAssistant]

👋 Hello @glenn-jocher, thank you for submitting a ultralytics/docs 🚀 PR! This is an automated message to help with review readiness—an engineer will assist you shortly. Please review the checklist below for a smooth merge ✨

• ✅ Define a Purpose: Clearly explain the purpose of your fix or feature in your PR description, and link to any relevant issues. Ensure your commit messages are clear, concise, and adhere to the project's conventions.
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For more guidance, please refer to our Contributing Guide. Don't hesitate to leave a comment if you have any questions. Thank you for contributing to Ultralytics! 🚀

[UltralyticsAssistant]

🔍 PR Review

_{Made with ❤️ by Ultralytics Actions}

The workflow refactor looks solid overall, and the GITHUB_ENV quoting fix plus shared sitemap mapping improve maintainability. One functional concern remains: Academy and Handbook are included in the IndexNow loop, but their normal changed-file submission path is disabled, so they won't actually send incremental updates unless a full submission is forced.

💬 Posted 1 inline comment

[glenn-jocher]

Status: leaving this PR in draft for now.

Current validation:

• PR checks are green on the branch, but the live manual sitemap submission test is not green.
• Manual workflow run 25250527373 on add-academy-handbook-sitemaps submitted existing www.ultralytics.com and docs.ultralytics.com sitemaps successfully.
• The same run failed the new GSC submissions with 403 insufficient permission for both:
  • https://academy.ultralytics.com/sitemap.xml
  • https://handbook.ultralytics.com/sitemap.xml
• IndexNow key verification is also not ready for the new hosts: the current key path returns 404 on both Academy and Handbook.

What needs to happen before this PR is ready:

1. GSC: grant the service account from GOOGLE_SEARCH_CONSOLE_API_JSON access to the exact URL-prefix properties:
   • https://academy.ultralytics.com/
   • https://handbook.ultralytics.com/
     Full user or owner access should be sufficient for sitemap submission.
2. IndexNow: serve the current IndexNow key file on both hosts at the root key path:
   • https://academy.ultralytics.com/1d4e5b23180545f89544dbeddb09bc2c.txt
   • https://handbook.ultralytics.com/1d4e5b23180545f89544dbeddb09bc2c.txt
     The file content should be exactly 1d4e5b23180545f89544dbeddb09bc2c.
3. After both are enabled, rerun Submit Sitemaps on this branch. If GSC passes and the key files return 200, update this PR to include Academy/Handbook in the IndexNow loop and rerun validation.

The current PR intentionally keeps IndexNow scoped to docs.ultralytics.com until the new hosts serve the key file, and it now fails visibly if GSC rejects any sitemap instead of hiding the failure in a successful workflow run.

[glenn-jocher]

Update after testing the base-domain Search Console property:

• I changed this PR to submit the new Academy and Handbook sitemaps through sc-domain:ultralytics.com, while leaving the existing www and docs URL-prefix submissions unchanged.
• Manual workflow run 25250573836 now passes GSC submission for both new sitemaps:
  • https://academy.ultralytics.com/sitemap.xml
  • https://handbook.ultralytics.com/sitemap.xml
• IndexNow is still not ready for the new hosts. The current key path still returns 404 on both:
  • https://academy.ultralytics.com/1d4e5b23180545f89544dbeddb09bc2c.txt
  • https://handbook.ultralytics.com/1d4e5b23180545f89544dbeddb09bc2c.txt

Current state: GSC is working with the Domain property; IndexNow remains docs-only until Academy and Handbook serve the key file. Keeping this PR in draft for now.

[UltralyticsAssistant]

Merged — fantastic improvement, @glenn-jocher! 🚀

“Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out.” — Robert Collier

This update is a great example of that idea in action: stronger sitemap coverage, clearer failure handling, and more reliable indexing automation across Ultralytics properties all add up to a big win for maintainability and discoverability. Thanks for pushing this forward and making the workflow more robust for the whole ecosystem.