XML Sitemap Generator

How the sitemap generator works

An XML sitemap is a structured file that tells search engines which pages on your website matter and how to crawl them efficiently. This free sitemap generator takes a plain list of URLs — one per line — and converts them into a valid sitemap.xml file that conforms to the sitemaps.org 0.9 protocol. Because everything happens in your browser, you can paste internal staging URLs, client work, or unpublished pages without any of them ever touching a server.

To use the tool, paste your URLs into the box on the left. Any line that does not start with http:// or https:// automatically gets https:// prepended, so you can paste bare domains and paths too. Blank lines and exact duplicates are removed for you. Then choose a default changefreq (how often the page changes), a priority (0.0 to 1.0, relative importance within your own site), and a lastmod date. The valid XML rebuilds instantly on the right as you type, ready to copy or download from the output panel.

Why every site needs an XML sitemap

Search engines discover pages primarily by following links. If a page has few internal links, is brand new, or sits deep in your site structure, crawlers may take a long time to find it — or miss it entirely. A sitemap solves this by handing search engines a complete map of your important URLs. This is especially valuable for large e-commerce catalogs, new websites with few backlinks, single-page applications where content is rendered with JavaScript, and sites with media or pages that are not well linked internally.

A sitemap does not guarantee indexing, and it does not directly improve rankings. What it does is improve crawl efficiency and discovery. The lastmod field, when accurate, helps Google understand when content actually changed so it can re-crawl updated pages sooner. Google largely ignores priority and changefreq today, but they remain part of the standard and are still respected by other crawlers, so the generator includes them as optional fields.

Sitemap rules and limits to remember

• A single sitemap file can hold up to 50,000 URLs and must be under 50MB uncompressed. Split larger sites into multiple files referenced by a sitemap index.
• Always use absolute URLs with the protocol (https://), and only include URLs from the same domain the sitemap is hosted on.
• List only canonical, indexable URLs — avoid pages blocked by robots.txt, pages with noindex, or non-canonical duplicates.
• The lastmod date should be in W3C / ISO 8601 format (YYYY-MM-DD is accepted).

Submitting your sitemap

Once you download sitemap.xml, upload it to the root of your domain so it is reachable at https://yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml. Then add a reference line to your robots.txt file — you can build that with our robots.txt generator — using Sitemap: https://yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml. Finally, open Google Search Console, navigate to the Sitemaps report, and submit the sitemap URL so Google starts crawling it on a schedule. Repeat the same step in Bing Webmaster Tools for Bing and DuckDuckGo coverage. While you are optimizing, pair your sitemap work with our meta description generator to make sure each indexed page also earns clicks in the search results.

Frequently asked questions