How to Generate an XML Sitemap for Your Website

Generate an XML sitemap for your website

An XML sitemap is a simple file that lists the pages you want search engines to find. It doesn't make pages rank, but it does give crawlers a clean map of your site, which helps Google and Bing discover new or buried pages faster. If your site has more than a handful of URLs, or pages that aren't well linked internally (think deep blog archives, product variants, or a fresh launch with few backlinks), a sitemap is one of the easiest wins in technical SEO.

You don't need a plugin or a server-side script to make one. The Sitemap Generator builds a valid sitemap.xml right in your browser. You add the URLs you care about, set a few optional attributes like priority and change frequency, and download the file. Nothing gets uploaded to a server, there's no account to create, and the URLs you type never leave your device. Here's how to do it end to end.

How to generate an XML sitemap

1. Open the Sitemap Generator. It loads with a small set of example URLs so you can see the structure before you replace them with your own.

2. Pick a starting template (optional). The tool offers presets for common site types like blog, e-commerce shop, portfolio, and SaaS. Choosing one pre-fills sensible URLs, priorities, and change frequencies that you can edit. If your site doesn't fit a template, just clear the rows and start from scratch.

3. Add your URLs. Enter each page you want indexed, one row per URL. Use full, absolute addresses including https:// and your exact domain, for example https://example.com/blog/getting-started. Add only canonical URLs you actually want in search results, and skip duplicates, paginated junk, admin pages, and anything blocked by your robots file.

4. Set lastmod for each page (optional but useful). This is the date the page last changed. Crawlers use it as a hint about what to recrawl, so keep it honest. If you're not sure of a date, leave it blank rather than guessing, since a fake date can train Google to ignore the field.

5. Choose a change frequency. Pick how often each page typically updates, from always down to never. Your homepage or a news feed might be daily, while a privacy policy is yearly. This is a hint, not a command, so don't overthink it.

6. Set priority, or let the tool do it. Priority is a relative value from 0.0 to 1.0 that signals which of your pages matter most to you. The generator can assign these automatically based on URL depth, or you can switch to manual mode and set each one. The homepage usually sits at 1.0; deep pages drop lower.

7. Generate and review the XML. The tool builds the <urlset> markup live as you edit. Scan it to confirm every <loc> is a real, reachable URL and there are no obvious typos.

8. Download the file. Export it as sitemap.xml. Because everything runs locally, the file is written straight from your browser. You now have a finished sitemap ready to upload.

9. Place it at your domain root and link it. Upload sitemap.xml to the top level of your site so it lives at https://example.com/sitemap.xml. Then reference it in your robots file. The Robots.txt Generator makes that line for you, adding Sitemap: https://example.com/sitemap.xml so crawlers find it automatically.

10. Submit it to search engines. In Google Search Console, open the Sitemaps report, enter sitemap.xml, and submit. Bing Webmaster Tools has the same flow. After a crawl, you can confirm pages are actually getting picked up with the Google Index Checker.

Tips

• Stay within the limits. A single sitemap can hold up to 50,000 URLs and must be under 50MB uncompressed. Larger sites should split into multiple files and reference them from a sitemap index.
• Match your canonicals. Every URL in the sitemap should be the canonical version: one protocol (https), one host (www or not, pick one), and no tracking parameters.
• Keep it current. A sitemap is only as good as its freshness. Regenerate and re-download whenever you add or remove a batch of pages, then re-submit.
• Validate before you ship. Run the finished file through the Sitemap Validator to catch malformed tags or bad URLs before search engines do.
• Audit an existing one. If you already have a sitemap and want to see what's inside it, the Sitemap Analyzer breaks down its URLs and structure.

Common problems

• "Couldn't fetch" in Search Console. Usually the file isn't at the root, the URL is wrong, or robots.txt blocks it. Confirm it loads in a browser first.
• URLs not getting indexed. A sitemap requests crawling, it doesn't force indexing. Thin, duplicate, or noindex pages will still be skipped.

FAQ

Do I need a sitemap if my site is small? Not strictly. Google can crawl a well-linked small site without one. But it's harmless and helps with new pages, so there's little reason to skip it.

How often should I update my sitemap? Whenever your set of pages changes meaningfully. For an active blog or store, regenerating after each batch of new pages and re-submitting keeps discovery quick.

Is my URL list private when I use this tool? Yes. The generator runs entirely in your browser. The URLs and dates you enter aren't uploaded anywhere, and there's no sign-up.

What's the difference between an XML and an HTML sitemap? The XML version is for search engines and uses structured tags. An HTML sitemap is a human-readable page of links for visitors. This tool produces the XML format crawlers expect.

For the bigger picture on crawling, indexing, and site structure, see the complete technical SEO guide, then pair the generator with the Robots.txt Generator and Sitemap Validator.