How to use the XML sitemap generator

1Paste absolute URLs into Page URLs, one per line. Add a date after a URL (space or tab, YYYY-MM-DD) to set its lastmod.
2Choose lastmod: Dates from my list, Today for all or None. Leave changefreq and priority out unless another system needs them.
3Check the counts and any Lines not used.
4Press Download (or Download all (ZIP) for split sitemaps), upload to your site and submit the URL in Search Console.

Example

Input

https://www.example.com/
https://www.example.com/about/ 2026-09-01
https://www.example.com/blog/sourdough-starter/	2026-09-20
https://www.example.com/about/
/contact/

Output

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
  <url>
    <loc>https://www.example.com/</loc>
  </url>
  <url>
    <loc>https://www.example.com/about/</loc>
    <lastmod>2026-09-01</lastmod>
  </url>
  <url>
    <loc>https://www.example.com/blog/sourdough-starter/</loc>
    <lastmod>2026-09-20</lastmod>
  </url>
</urlset>

The second /about/ is dropped as a duplicate, and /contact/ is listed under Lines not used because sitemap URLs must be absolute.

Crawling vs pasting URLs

This generator builds the sitemap from a list you provide; it doesn't crawl your site. That's deliberate: a crawler only finds pages that are linked, and it would include pages you don't want indexed. Get the list from the most reliable source you have: your CMS (most can export all published URLs), a spreadsheet of products, or a desktop crawler such as Screaming Frog. Many platforms (WordPress 5.5+, Shopify, Wix, Squarespace) already generate a sitemap automatically at /sitemap.xml or /wp-sitemap.xml.

Which URLs belong in a sitemap

Only the canonical URLs you want in search results:

Include: pages that return 200, are indexable and are their own canonical.
Leave out: redirects, 404s, noindex pages, URLs blocked by robots.txt, parameter variants and duplicates that canonicalize elsewhere.

A sitemap full of non-canonical URLs teaches search engines to trust it less. Check a sample with the HTTP status checker before submitting.

lastmod, changefreq and priority

Google uses <lastmod> when it's consistently accurate, meaning the date the page's main content last changed, not the date the sitemap was generated. Setting today's date on every URL every day is the quickest way to have it ignored. Google ignores <changefreq> and <priority> completely, so the generator leaves them out unless you choose a value. Dates use the W3C format: 2026-09-20 or 2026-09-20T14:30:00+00:00.

Large sites: sitemap index files

One sitemap may hold at most 50,000 URLs and 50 MB uncompressed (sitemaps.org protocol). Above 50,000 URLs, the generator splits the list into sitemap-1.xml, sitemap-2.xml and so on, plus a sitemap-index.xml that lists them, and offers them as one ZIP. Upload all files to the same folder and submit only the index. All URLs in a sitemap must be on the same host as the sitemap, which is why mixed hosts are flagged.

Submitting your sitemap

Upload the file to your site, usually https://www.example.com/sitemap.xml.
Add Sitemap: https://www.example.com/sitemap.xml to robots.txt (the robots.txt generator does this), so every crawler can find it.
Submit it in Google Search Console (Indexing → Sitemaps) and Bing Webmaster Tools.
Check the reports a few days later for URLs that couldn't be fetched or indexed.

Is anything I enter stored?

This tool runs entirely in your browser. Your text is not uploaded to our servers.

Sources

Questions about the XML sitemap generator

Does Google use changefreq and priority?

No. Google has said it ignores both. It uses lastmod if the dates are consistently accurate.

How many URLs can one sitemap hold?

50,000 URLs or 50 MB uncompressed, whichever comes first. Larger sites need several sitemaps and a sitemap index, which this generator creates automatically.

Should noindex pages be in a sitemap?

No. A sitemap says "please index these"; listing noindex pages sends a contradictory signal and shows up as errors in Search Console.

XML Sitemap Generator