XML Sitemap Generator
Turn a list of URLs into a valid sitemap.xml file to download.
What is an XML sitemap?
An XML sitemap is a file that lists the pages on your website you want search engines to find. It follows the sitemaps.org protocol supported by Google, Bing and other search engines. A sitemap does not guarantee that every page will be indexed, but it helps crawlers discover new and deep pages faster, especially on new sites, large sites and sites with few internal links.
This generator turns a plain list of URLs into a correctly formatted sitemap.xml file. It does not crawl websites, so it works for any site, including pages behind a staging domain or pages not yet linked anywhere.
How to create a sitemap
- Paste your page URLs into the box, one per line. Each must start with https:// or http://.
- Choose a change frequency, or leave it out.
- Pick a priority, or let the tool set it automatically from how deep each URL is.
- Choose whether to add a last modified date: today, a date you pick, or none.
- Click Generate sitemap and check the counts of valid, duplicate and invalid URLs.
- Copy the XML or download sitemap.xml and upload it to your website root.
Features
- URL validation that skips lines which are not full web addresses.
- Duplicate removal, including URLs that differ only by a #fragment.
- Proper XML escaping of characters such as & in query strings, so the file is valid.
- Automatic encoding of spaces and non-English characters in URLs.
- Mixed domain warning, because a sitemap should only list URLs from its own site.
- Up to 50,000 URLs, the protocol limit for a single sitemap file.
Do changefreq and priority matter?
Google has said it ignores the changefreq and priority values and relies mostly on an accurate lastmod date. Other search engines may still read them, so including them is harmless. The most useful thing you can do is keep lastmod honest: only update it when the page content really changes.
Submitting your sitemap
After uploading, add a line such as Sitemap: https://example.com/sitemap.xml to your robots.txt file. Then submit the sitemap URL in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools. WordPress sites already have a built in sitemap at /wp-sitemap.xml, and SEO plugins create their own, so use this tool for static sites, landing pages, custom apps or when you need a hand picked list of URLs.
Frequently asked questions
Can this tool crawl my website automatically?
No. Browsers cannot fetch other websites for security reasons, so you paste the list of URLs yourself. You can export page lists from your CMS, analytics or a spreadsheet.
How many URLs can a sitemap contain?
Up to 50,000 URLs and 50 MB uncompressed. For larger sites, split the list into several sitemaps and link them from a sitemap index.
What does automatic priority do?
It gives the home page 1.0 and lowers the value by 0.2 for each folder level, down to a minimum of 0.1.