In Search Console, submitted means the sitemap was sent and parsed; indexed means Google accepted those URLs into its index. The gap between them is normal. A large gap does not automatically mean a problem, because a sitemap can include canonical duplicates, redirected URLs, noindex pages, or pages Google simply chose not to index.
Read the report like this:
— submitted high, indexed low: check if the sitemap contains only indexable canonicals
— submitted low, indexed high: Google may have discovered URLs elsewhere, outside the sitemap
— submitted and indexed both low: the sitemap may be too small, stale, or incomplete
— big swings in indexed count: inspect page templates, canonicals, robots, and internal links
Do not use the sitemap report as a ranking report. It is a coverage signal, not a performance signal. A clean sitemap should mostly list final, canonical, indexable URLs with stable status codes and no accidental parameter pages.
If the gap looks off, sample a few URLs from the sitemap and compare them against the live page, canonical tag, robots directive, and HTTP status. That five-minute audit usually tells you more than the totals ever will.
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Sitemaps report: “submitted” and “indexed” are not the same number
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