A sitemap is an XML file at a known location (typically /sitemap.xml) that lists URLs on your site for search-engine crawlers. The tool above generates sitemap.xml content from input URLs; nothing leaves your machine.

The minimum sitemap

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
  <url>
    <loc>https://example.com/</loc>
  </url>
  <url>
    <loc>https://example.com/about</loc>
  </url>
  <url>
    <loc>https://example.com/contact</loc>
  </url>
</urlset>

That’s it. A list of <url> elements, each with a <loc> (the URL). Search engines will crawl these.

Optional metadata per URL

<url>
  <loc>https://example.com/blog/post-1</loc>
  <lastmod>2026-04-30</lastmod>
  <changefreq>weekly</changefreq>
  <priority>0.8</priority>
</url>

<lastmod> — last-modified date in YYYY-MM-DD or full ISO 8601 form. Helps crawlers decide whether to re-fetch.
<changefreq> — hint about update frequency. Values: always, hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, never. Google ignores this.
<priority> — relative importance, 0.0 to 1.0. Google ignores this too.

For Google specifically, only <loc> and <lastmod> matter, and Google uses <lastmod> only if it’s consistently and verifiably accurate. The tool above can stamp today’s date on every URL — leave that off unless every page really changed today — and adds <changefreq> and <priority> only if you pick values. It rejects relative URLs, because <loc> must be a full URL.

Sitemap size limits

A single sitemap file can contain up to:

50,000 URLs
50 MB uncompressed (or .xml.gz compressed)

For larger sites, split into multiple sitemaps and link them via a sitemap index:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<sitemapindex xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
  <sitemap>
    <loc>https://example.com/sitemap-pages.xml</loc>
    <lastmod>2026-04-30</lastmod>
  </sitemap>
  <sitemap>
    <loc>https://example.com/sitemap-blog.xml</loc>
    <lastmod>2026-04-30</lastmod>
  </sitemap>
</sitemapindex>

The index file points at sub-sitemaps; each sub-sitemap contains URLs.

Where to put the sitemap

Two ways to make crawlers find it:

Submit it in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools. This also shows you when it was fetched and any errors.
Sitemap: directive in robots.txt. Works for any sitemap location and for every crawler that reads robots.txt:

Sitemap: https://example.com/sitemap.xml

Put the file at the site root (/sitemap.xml): Google notes that a sitemap only covers URLs below its own directory unless you submit it in Search Console.

What URLs to include

Canonical URLs only. Don’t include both https://example.com/page and https://example.com/page/. Pick one and stick with it.
Public URLs only. Don’t include URLs that require authentication or are blocked by robots.txt — that confuses search engines.
Successful URLs only. Don’t include URLs that return 404 or redirect. Maintain the sitemap as the site changes.
Don’t include image URLs separately unless using a Google Images sitemap — they go inside the parent page’s <url> element.

Image and video sitemaps

For media-rich sites, augment <url> elements with image or video metadata:

<url>
  <loc>https://example.com/post-1</loc>
  <image:image xmlns:image="http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap-image/1.1">
    <image:loc>https://example.com/img/post-1-hero.jpg</image:loc>
  </image:image>
</url>

Helps Google Images discover your images. Google deprecated the <image:caption>, <image:title>, <image:geo_location> and <image:license> tags in 2022; <image:loc> is the one that matters. Most sites don’t bother; for image-heavy sites, it’s worth it.

When to update the sitemap

When you publish new content. Static-site generators (Hugo, Astro, Eleventy) typically regenerate the sitemap on each build.
When you remove or redirect content. Stale sitemap entries make crawlers waste time on dead URLs.
Periodically as a sanity check. A monthly review catches missing pages.

For dynamic sites, regenerate on a schedule or on every content change. For static sites, the sitemap is part of the build output.

Notifying search engines

After updating a sitemap, you can ping search engines:

Google: Use Google Search Console to submit. The legacy https://www.google.com/ping?sitemap=URL was deprecated in 2023.
Bing: Use Bing Webmaster Tools or the IndexNow protocol.
Yandex: Yandex Webmaster.

For frequently-updated sites, IndexNow is the fastest mechanism — it’s a single HTTP POST that notifies Bing and Yandex about specific URL changes.

Common pitfalls

Including non-canonical URLs. https://example.com/page and https://example.com/page?utm=... should not both be in the sitemap. Use canonical URLs only.
Stale <lastmod> dates. A <lastmod> from 2019 in a 2026 sitemap signals the sitemap itself is unmaintained; crawlers may discount it.
Linking to redirected URLs. Causes wasted crawl. Update the sitemap when you change URLs.
HTTP URLs in an HTTPS site (or vice versa). Inconsistent protocol fragmentation. Pick one canonical form.
Sitemaps larger than the limit. 50,000 URLs / 50 MB. Split with a sitemap index.
Forgetting to declare the namespace. The xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9" is required.
Wrong character encoding. UTF-8 is the standard. Other encodings may work but cause edge-case bugs.

For related crawler-facing files, see robots.txt generator, meta tag generator.

Sitemap.xml Generator