XML Sitemap Generator

How to use the Sitemap Generator

1. Enter your homepage URL

   Use the canonical version — if your site redirects to www and https, start there, so the crawler collects the URLs Google actually indexes rather than a set of redirects.

2. Start the crawl and let it work

   The crawler follows internal links outward from the starting page. Larger sites take longer; it stops at 500 URLs.

3. Review the URL list before downloading

   Look for anything that does not belong — tag archives, search result pages, paginated duplicates, test pages. A sitemap full of low-value URLs sends a weak signal.

4. Download sitemap.xml

   The file is valid against the sitemaps.org schema and ready to upload as-is.

5. Upload to your web root

   It must sit at yoursite.com/sitemap.xml. Anywhere else and search engines will not find it by convention.

6. Submit it and reference it in robots.txt

   Add the file in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools, and add a Sitemap: line with the absolute URL to your robots.txt.

What this tool does

What a sitemap does — and does not do

The sole purpose of a sitemap is to help search engines discover pages on your site (a discovery aid). It tells Google, "These are all the URLs on my site, and they were last modified on this date." This is its only purpose.

What it does not do: It does not directly rank your pages. It also does not guarantee that all your pages will be indexed because Google considers a sitemap only as a hint, not a command. If Google does not find a page useful, it will not index it. Furthermore, it cannot fix a poorly built site. If a page is only in your sitemap and not linked anywhere else on the site, Google will assume it is not important.

Where it actually helps: Brand new sites that do not have any backlinks (inbound links) yet; very large websites where it takes up to five clicks to reach some pages; sites with weak internal linking; for the quick indexing of newly published pages; and for those websites that have recently undergone a migration.

The anatomy of the file

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
  <url>
    <loc>https://www.example.com/</loc>
    <lastmod>2026-09-14</lastmod>
    <changefreq>weekly</changefreq>
    <priority>1.0</priority>
  </url>
</urlset>

Only <loc> is required, and it must be a full absolute URL. lastmod is the one optional field Google actually pays attention to — but only if it is accurate. If every URL claims it was modified today, Google learns to ignore the field entirely for your site.

Be realistic about the other two. Google has stated plainly that it ignores changefreq and priority. They remain in the spec, other crawlers may read them, and they do no harm — just do not expect them to influence anything at Google.

What belongs in it

Rule: A sitemap should only contain those canonical and indexable URLs that you would be happy to see in Google search results.

Include these: Your homepage, service and product pages, published blog posts, useful category pages, and important landing pages.

Exclude:

• Pages carrying a noindex tag — listing them sends contradictory instructions
• URLs that redirect — list the destination instead
• Non-canonical duplicates, including parameter variants
• Internal search result pages
• Thin tag archives that exist only because the CMS created them
• Login, cart, checkout and thank-you pages
• Anything returning a 404 or 500

That last group matters more than it looks. Google Search Console reports errors for sitemap URLs that cannot be indexed, and a sitemap that is half errors degrades trust in the whole file.

Limits and splitting

A single sitemap file can contain a maximum of 50,000 URLs or 50 MB of uncompressed data. If your website is larger than this, you will need to split it into multiple files and create a Sitemap Index file, which essentially serves as a list of other sitemaps.

Pro-Tip: On large websites, even if you have fewer URLs than the limit, you should still divide them into different groups (such as separate sitemaps for pages, blogs, and products). This makes it incredibly easy to see in Google Search Console which parts of your site are being indexed properly and which are not. This is its true and most significant benefit.

After you upload

1. Confirm it loads. Open yoursite.com/sitemap.xml in a browser. If you see XML, you are set. If you see a 404, it is in the wrong place.
2. Add it to robots.txt. One line: Sitemap: https://www.example.com/sitemap.xml. Use the absolute URL, and place it anywhere in the file.
3. Submit in Search Console. Sitemaps → enter the path → Submit. Do the same in Bing Webmaster Tools.
4. Check back in a week. Check the number of Discovered and Indexed pages in the report. If there is a big difference between the two, understand that the problem is not with Google finding the pages, but rather with the quality or duplication of your content.

Static Files vs Dynamic Routes

The file downloaded from this tool is like a snapshot, which is best for business websites that only update a few times a year. However, if you continuously publish blogs or products, you should use a sitemap that is dynamically generated from a database so that new pages are automatically added to the sitemap as soon as they are published. Most CMS platforms do this work automatically. You can use our tool to verify whether your dynamic sitemap is working correctly or not; match both URL lists and fix the missing pages.

Why the crawl might miss pages

Our crawler follows your HTML links. It will never be able to find pages that load only via JavaScript, are behind a password or login, are blocked by robots.txt, or are Orphan Pages (meaning pages that are not linked from anywhere else on the entire site).

If the tool cannot find a page, understand that Googlebot will not be able to find it either. The solution for this is not just adding the name to the sitemap, but rather linking that page from your website's main navigation

Frequently asked questions