🗺 XML Sitemap Generator

An XML sitemap is a file that lists all important pages on your website, helping search engines like Google discover, crawl, and index your content more efficiently. It's essential for SEO because it acts as a roadmap for search engines, especially for large websites, new sites with few external links, or sites with complex navigation. XML sitemaps improve content discovery, faster indexing, and provide valuable data about your site structure to search engines.

Our advanced XML sitemap generator supports up to 1000 URLs, which is double the capacity of most free tools that limit you to 500 URLs. According to Google's guidelines, a single sitemap file can contain up to 50,000 URLs and be no larger than 50MB uncompressed. For larger websites, you'll need multiple sitemap files organized in a sitemap index file. Our tool handles this automatically and provides guidance for larger sites.

Include all important pages that you want search engines to index: homepage, product pages, blog posts, category pages, and key landing pages. Avoid including duplicate content, canonicalized pages, pages blocked by robots.txt, or low-quality pages. Don't include images, CSS, or JavaScript files in your main sitemap - these belong in specialized image or video sitemaps. Focus on content that provides value to users and represents your site's quality pages.

Google has stated that they largely ignore priority and changefreq values, as they've determined these are often inaccurate or manipulated. However, other search engines like Bing may still consider these hints. The lastmod (last modified) tag is more valuable as it helps search engines understand when content has actually changed. Our tool includes these elements for completeness but focuses on accurate lastmod dates and proper URL structure, which are more impactful for SEO.

Submit your XML sitemap through Google Search Console (Sitemaps section) and Bing Webmaster Tools. Upload the sitemap file to your website's root directory (e.g., yoursite.com/sitemap.xml) and reference it in your robots.txt file with "Sitemap: https://yoursite.com/sitemap.xml". This ensures search engines can find and process your sitemap automatically. Monitor submission status and any errors in the respective webmaster tools.

XML sitemaps are designed for search engines and contain structured data about your pages including URLs, last modified dates, and metadata. HTML sitemaps are designed for human visitors and provide a user-friendly page listing your site's content. Both serve different purposes: XML sitemaps improve search engine crawling and indexing, while HTML sitemaps help users navigate your site when they can't find what they're looking for through normal navigation.

Update your XML sitemap whenever you add new pages, remove pages, or make significant content changes. For dynamic websites, consider automating sitemap generation through your CMS or using plugins that update sitemaps automatically. E-commerce sites should update sitemaps when adding products, blogs should update when publishing posts, and static sites need updates only when structure changes. Regular updates ensure search engines have current information about your site.

Yes, and it's recommended for media-rich websites. Image sitemaps help search engines discover and index images that might not be easily found through regular crawling. Video sitemaps provide metadata about video content including duration, description, and thumbnail locations. Our advanced generator supports both image and video sitemaps, which are especially valuable for photography websites, video platforms, e-commerce sites with product images, and any content-heavy site with significant media assets.

Search engines will report sitemap errors in their webmaster tools, which can include invalid URLs, incorrect formatting, or accessibility issues. If your sitemap exceeds 50,000 URLs or 50MB, you'll need to split it into multiple sitemap files and create a sitemap index file. Our tool automatically validates sitemap format, checks URL accessibility, and provides warnings when approaching size limits. For large sites, we recommend creating multiple themed sitemaps (e.g., separate sitemaps for blog posts, products, and static pages).

Yes, our XML sitemap generator is completely free and supports up to 1000 URLs, which is significantly more than most free tools that limit you to 500 URLs. There are no hidden fees, registration requirements, or premium upgrades needed. You get access to all advanced features including priority settings, change frequency configuration, image sitemaps, multiple export formats, and professional SEO optimization features at no cost.