XML Sitemap Generator

An XML sitemap lists the URLs on your site that you want search engines to know about. Paste your URLs, set the options, and copy the resulting file.

A sitemap helps discovery. It does not make pages rank, and a page listed in a sitemap is not guaranteed to be indexed - the section below explains what it does and does not do.

Free · runs in your browser · updated

Configure Sitemap
Domain Address URL
Domain URLs list (one per line, relative paths)
Sitemap XML Code
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XML Sitemap Generator at a glance

What it does
Generate a valid XML sitemap from a list of URLs, with correct priority and change frequency values, and learn what search engines actually do with it.
Where it runs
Entirely in your browser — no data is uploaded
Works offline
Yes, once the page has loaded
Cost
Free, with no account and no usage limit
Category
Webmaster & SEO

How to use the sitemap generator

  1. Paste your URLs, one per line, as absolute URLs including the protocol.
  2. Set change frequency and priority if you want them, though both matter less than people assume.
  3. Copy the XML and save it as sitemap.xml at your site root.
  4. Reference it in robots.txt and submit it in Google Search Console.

The format

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

Only <loc> is required. Of the optional elements, <lastmod> is the one Google has said it uses - and only when it is accurate. Sites that set it to today's date on every page have trained Google to ignore it entirely.

Google has stated publicly that it ignores <priority> and <changefreq>. They are harmless to include and do nothing.

What a sitemap achieves

A sitemap is a discovery aid. It helps most when:

  • The site is large - thousands of pages, where crawling everything by following links is slow.
  • Pages are poorly linked - orphaned pages with few or no internal links pointing at them.
  • The site is new and has few external links for crawlers to arrive through.
  • Content changes often and you want new pages found quickly.

It helps least on a small, well-linked site, where a crawler will find everything anyway. It never improves rankings - inclusion is an invitation to crawl, not a ranking signal, and a low-quality page in a sitemap remains a low-quality page.

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Rules that matter

  • 50,000 URLs and 50 MB uncompressed per file. Beyond that, split into several sitemaps and list them in a sitemap index file.
  • Only include indexable URLs. A URL that is blocked in robots.txt, carries noindex, redirects, or returns a 404 sends a contradictory signal. Search Console reports these as errors.
  • Use canonical URLs only. One version per page - not both /page and /page/, not both HTTP and HTTPS.
  • Absolute URLs, matching your canonical domain exactly, including www or its absence.
  • Escape special characters. An ampersand in a URL must be written as &amp; in the XML.
  • Keep it current. A sitemap full of dead URLs is worse than none, because it wastes crawl budget on pages that no longer exist.

Submitting and monitoring

Two steps. Add a Sitemap: line to your robots.txt, which every major search engine reads. Then submit the sitemap in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools, which gives you reporting you would not otherwise get.

The number that matters afterwards is the gap between "discovered" and "indexed" in Search Console. A large gap means Google found your pages and chose not to index them, which is a content quality or duplication signal rather than a sitemap problem. Adding more URLs to the sitemap will not fix it.

Other sitemap types

Image sitemaps declare images associated with a page, useful for image-heavy sites where images are loaded by script.

Video sitemaps carry duration, thumbnail and description, and are the reliable way to get video results.

News sitemaps are for publishers in Google News and include only articles from the last two days.

Sitemap index files list other sitemaps, which is how large sites stay within the per-file limits. Splitting by section also makes the Search Console indexing report far more diagnostic, because you can see which part of the site is having trouble.

Frequently asked questions

No. It helps search engines discover pages. Whether those pages rank depends on their content, links and relevance - none of which a sitemap affects.

Google has said it ignores both. lastmod is used, but only where it is trustworthy - sites that stamp every page with today's date get it discounted.

Whenever pages are added or removed. Most content management systems generate it automatically, which is the right approach - a manually maintained sitemap goes stale quickly.

50,000 URLs or 50 MB uncompressed per file. Larger sites split across multiple sitemaps referenced from a sitemap index.

No. Including a URL you have told search engines not to index is contradictory, and Search Console will flag it. List only canonical, indexable URLs.

Nothing you enter here leaves your browser

XML Sitemap Generator does its work in JavaScript running on your own device. The page loads once, and after that there is no upload step and no server involved — which matters here because site structure and configuration are worth keeping to yourself.

You can verify this rather than taking our word for it: load the page, disconnect from the internet, and the tool keeps working. Our privacy policy sets out what is and is not collected, and this guide explains why the distinction matters.

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