What does an XML sitemap generator do?
An XML sitemap generator turns a list of URLs into a sitemap.xml file that follows the format search engines agreed on. Each URL becomes a url element with a loc child holding the address, and optionally three further hints: lastmod, the date the page last changed; changefreq, how often it tends to change; and priority, how important it is relative to your other pages. The file is then either saved at your site root or referenced from robots.txt.
The output is built from the list you provide rather than by crawling, which is the honest limitation and also the useful property. Nothing is fetched, so relative paths can be resolved against a site address you type, duplicates are removed as you go, and the tool flags the two commonest mistakes immediately: a URL that is neither absolute nor resolvable, and an address served over plain http where https would do.
For sites larger than a single file it also produces a sitemap index. The format allows at most 50,000 URLs and 50 MB per file, so a sitemap index is a second document that lists the members — one for each chunk — and that single file is the one you submit. The tool splits the list at whatever size you choose, writes each chunk as its own sitemap and builds the index around them, so all of the files can be downloaded in one go.
How to generate a sitemap.xml
- Enter your site address, such as https://example.com, if you want to paste relative paths rather than full URLs.
- Paste your URLs, one per line. Duplicates are removed, and anything that is neither an absolute URL nor resolvable against the site address is listed as skipped.
- Decide on lastmod. A truthful date is the only optional field that still does real work in a sitemap, so leave it off if the dates would be invented.
- Set changefreq and priority only if you want them. Modern crawlers ignore both, so omitting them is a defensible choice rather than a gap.
- Tick Sitemap index and choose a chunk size if the list is large or likely to grow past 50,000 URLs.
- Copy the XML or download every generated file, upload the sitemap to your site root, and reference it from robots.txt or submit it directly in Search Console.
XML Sitemap Generator limits and rules
| Item | Limit |
|---|---|
| URLs per sitemap | 50,000, per the published protocol |
| Uncompressed size | 50 MB per file, which is why a sitemap index exists |
| Optional fields | lastmod, changefreq and priority, each included only when you ask for it |
| Duplicate handling | Repeated URLs are dropped so each address appears once |
| Relative paths | Resolved against the site address when one is given |
| Warnings | URLs that cannot be resolved, and any that use plain http |
| Not crawled | Nothing is fetched; the sitemap is assembled from the list you paste |
| Not hosted | You upload the file to your own site; nothing is stored here |
When to use it
- Producing a first sitemap for a small site without installing a plugin or a build step.
- Generating a sitemap index for a catalogue or archive that runs past 50,000 URLs.
- Rebuilding a sitemap after a migration, when the URL list already exists in a spreadsheet.
- Setting a single truthful lastmod across a batch of pages that genuinely changed together.
- Checking whether a URL list is clean — duplicates, malformed entries and plain-http addresses all show up immediately.
Is it private?
Nothing is captured and nothing is uploaded. The sitemap is assembled in this page from the list you paste, so an unreleased site structure or a list of staging URLs never leaves your browser. The download is a file created locally and saved by your own browser.
Frequently asked questions
It depends on the site. For a small site whose pages are all linked from the home page or a menu, a crawler will find everything by following links and a sitemap adds little. It earns its place when pages are hard to reach that way: a deep archive, paginated sections, a catalogue generated from a database, or a site with millions of pages. It is also the cleanest way to declare a lastmod across a whole site, which is the field crawlers still genuinely use. Always keep a sitemap that names pages returning 404 or redirects, though — that costs you the same trust it buys.
Mostly no. Priority is a hint about your own pages relative to each other, not a ranking factor and not a comparison against other sites, and search engines have said plainly that they ignore it. Changefreq is a guess you make on the crawler's behalf, and crawlers stopped trusting such guesses a long time ago because so many sites declared daily on pages that never changed. Including them does no harm but achieves nothing. lastmod is the exception: it is the one optional field that still affects crawl scheduling, and only when it is accurate.
To the date the content of a page last meaningfully changed — not the date the template or the build changed, and certainly not today for every page. A build timestamp is the single most common way to make lastmod useless: if all fifty thousand URLs claim to have changed this morning, the crawler learns that the dates say nothing about your site and starts ignoring them. Our guidance is to set it from the page's own revision date if your site knows it, and to omit the field entirely if it does not.
It is a second sitemap file whose entries point at other sitemaps rather than at pages. The protocol caps a sitemap at 50,000 URLs and 50 MB uncompressed, so a large site is split into several member files and an index is submitted in their place. Search engines support this natively and nested indexes are permitted, though one level is enough for almost every site. Tick the sitemap index option here and the tool writes the members and the index around them.
Name it sitemap.xml and place it at the site root, so it answers at https://example.com/sitemap.xml, then declare it in robots.txt with a Sitemap line giving the full address. That is enough for most search engines to find it, and you can also submit it directly in each engine's webmaster console to see how many URLs were accepted. Note that a sitemap mentioned in robots.txt but returning a redirect, a 403 or a 404 does nothing at all, so check that it is reachable after uploading.
No, and nor should trailing-slash variants, or a page and its printer-friendly twin. A sitemap is a list of canonical addresses: listing two addresses for one page asks a crawler to treat them as two pages, which is exactly the duplication the canonical tag exists to prevent. The tool flags plain http entries for this reason. Pick the scheme, pick whether trailing slashes are used, make sure the page's own canonical tag agrees, and list each address once.
Related tools
Written and maintained by Md. Nur Hossain Repon.