Free Sitemap XML Generator — Create sitemap.xml Instantly

A sitemap.xml is an XML file that lists URLs on your website that you want search engines to crawl and index. It follows the Sitemaps protocol and helps search engines like Google and Bing discover pages — especially new or deeply nested ones that may not be found through regular crawling.

Not necessarily, but Google recommends them for sites with more than 500 pages, new sites with few external links, sites with many orphan pages, and sites updated frequently. For small, well-linked sites, a sitemap is optional but still good practice.

A single sitemap can contain up to 50,000 URLs and must not exceed 50 MB uncompressed. For larger sites, split URLs across multiple sitemap files and reference them from a sitemap index file.

The lastmod tag tells search engines when a page was last meaningfully updated, in W3C datetime format (e.g., 2026-02-05). Use it honestly — setting today's date on every page reduces its signal value.

Google has publicly stated it largely ignores both changefreq and priority. Other search engines may still use them as hints. The most useful optional tag is lastmod — if set accurately.

Place it in your website's root directory so it's accessible at yoursite.com/sitemap.xml. Add a reference in your robots.txt file and submit it in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.

Yes. Search engines accept gzipped sitemaps (sitemap.xml.gz). This reduces file size, which helps with large sitemaps. Reference the .gz file in your robots.txt.

A sitemap index lists multiple sitemap files using the <sitemapindex> tag instead of <urlset>. Each entry points to a sitemap file with an optional lastmod date. Required when your site exceeds 50,000 URLs or 50 MB per sitemap.

Google supports image and video sitemap extensions using additional XML namespaces. These let you include image URLs, captions, video thumbnails, and metadata alongside page URLs. Useful for media-heavy sites that want better visibility in image and video search.

Yes. example.com/about and example.com/about/ are technically different URLs. Pick one convention and use it consistently in your sitemap. This tool has a "trailing slash" option to enforce consistency.

No. All processing runs in your browser using JavaScript. Your URLs are never uploaded or stored. You can verify this in your browser's network inspector.

Update it whenever you add, remove, or significantly change pages. Many CMS platforms and static site generators can auto-generate sitemaps on build. For dynamic sites, consider generating the sitemap automatically on a schedule.

A sitemap.xml is an XML file that lists the URLs on a website you want search engines to crawl and index. It follows the Sitemaps protocol (sitemaps.org) and helps search engines like Google and Bing discover pages, especially new or deeply nested ones that may not be found through regular crawling.

Paste your URLs into a sitemap generator (one per line), optionally set lastmod dates and changefreq values, then download the generated XML file. Upload it to your website root (e.g., example.com/sitemap.xml) and reference it in your robots.txt file.

Not every website needs one, but Google recommends sitemaps for sites with more than 500 pages, sites with many orphan pages (not linked from other pages), new sites with few external links, and sites that use rich media or are updated frequently. For small sites with good internal linking, a sitemap is optional but still useful.

A single sitemap.xml file can contain up to 50,000 URLs and must not exceed 50 MB when uncompressed. If your site has more URLs, you need to split them across multiple sitemap files and reference them from a sitemap index file.

The lastmod tag tells search engines when a page was last modified, using the W3C datetime format (e.g., 2026-02-05). Search engines use this as a hint for recrawl scheduling. Only set lastmod to the actual last-modified date — using today's date on every page reduces its usefulness.

The changefreq tag indicates how often a page is likely to change. Valid values are always, hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, and never. Note that Google has stated it largely ignores this field, but other search engines may still use it as a hint.

The priority tag is a value from 0.0 to 1.0 that suggests the relative importance of a URL compared to other URLs on the same site. The default is 0.5. This is a hint only — it does not affect how your pages rank in search results relative to pages on other sites. Google has said it largely ignores this field.

Place your sitemap.xml in the root directory of your website so it is accessible at example.com/sitemap.xml. Then add 'Sitemap: https://example.com/sitemap.xml' to your robots.txt file. You can also submit it directly in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.

No. All processing happens in your browser using JavaScript. Your URLs are never sent to any server. You can verify this in your browser's network inspector.

A sitemap index file lists multiple sitemap files. It uses the sitemapindex tag instead of urlset and references individual sitemap files with their location and optional lastmod date. This is required when your site has more than 50,000 URLs or your sitemap exceeds 50 MB.

Yes. Search engines accept gzipped sitemaps (sitemap.xml.gz). Gzipping reduces file size, which is especially useful for large sitemaps. Reference the .gz file in your robots.txt and search console.

Google supports image and video sitemap extensions. These use additional XML namespaces to include image URLs, captions, video thumbnails, and other metadata alongside regular page URLs. This is useful for media-heavy sites that want better visibility in image and video search results.