About the Sitemap Generator
The Sitemap Generator turns a list of pages into a sitemap.xml file in the format defined at sitemaps.org, the protocol Google, Bing and other search engines share. Paste full URLs or paths like /about, set your website address, and copy or download the finished XML.
A sitemap helps search engines find your pages, especially on new sites with few links pointing to them, large sites, and pages that are hard to reach through your menus. It is a list of suggestions, not an order: search engines still decide what to crawl and index, and a sitemap does not improve rankings by itself.
The tool removes duplicates, drops # fragments, encodes spaces and accented letters, escapes characters such as &, and skips lines that belong to another domain. It warns when a file goes over the protocol's limits. Nothing leaves your browser.
How to use it
- Enter your website addressType the address exactly as your pages use it, such as https://example.com. Paths are added to it.
- Paste your pagesOne URL or path per line, or drop a text file onto the box. Sample fills in a small site to try.
- Choose the last modified dateToday, a date you pick, or Leave out. Use a real date only if it is true for every page in the list.
- Decide on changefreq and priorityBoth are left out by default, because Google ignores them. Add them if another search engine you care about uses them.
- Copy or downloadSave sitemap.xml to the root of your site, then submit it in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools, or list it in robots.txt.
Key features
Paths or full URLs
Mix /about, about and https://example.com/about in one list. Each becomes a full address on your site.
Clean, escaped XML
A UTF-8 file with the sitemaps.org namespace. & becomes &, and spaces and accented letters are percent-encoded.
Duplicates and strays removed
The same page listed twice appears once, #fragments are dropped, and URLs on another host or protocol are skipped and counted.
Limit checks
The status line turns red above 50,000 URLs or 50 MB, and for any URL of 2,048 characters or more.
Optional tags
lastmod as a W3C date, changefreq from daily to yearly, and priority either 0.5 for all or by page depth.
Private by design
No crawling and no upload. The file is built from the list you paste.
Examples
A small site
Sample fills in seven paths. With the address https://example.com and Last modified set to Today (October 10, 2026 in this example), the first entries are:
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
<url>
<loc>https://example.com/</loc>
<lastmod>2026-10-10</lastmod>
</url>
<url>
<loc>https://example.com/about</loc>
<lastmod>2026-10-10</lastmod>
</url>The status line reads 7 URLs and 778 B. The file starts with the usual XML declaration line, which the download includes.
What happens to messy input
| You paste | In the sitemap |
|---|---|
/about#team after /about | Left out, same page |
/s?q=mugs&page=2 | Kept, with & written as & |
/café menu | Encoded as /caf%C3%A9%20menu |
An http:// address | Skipped, other protocol |
A www. address | Skipped, other host |
The status line counts the skipped lines, here "2 lines skipped (other site or invalid)". The www and http versions count as different sites, which is why the website address must match the URLs your pages really use.
Priority by page depth
| Page | Priority |
|---|---|
/ | 1.0 |
/about | 0.8 |
/services/web-design | 0.6 |
/a/b/c | 0.4 |
/a/b/c/d and deeper | 0.3 |
Large sites
A list of 50,001 paths builds in under a second, but the status turns red: "over 50,000 URLs: split into several sitemaps". The protocol allows at most 50,000 URLs and 50 MB (52,428,800 bytes, uncompressed) per file. For more, make several sitemaps and list them in a sitemap index file.
Tips
- List only pages you want in search results: the canonical version of each page, returning status 200, not blocked by robots.txt and not marked noindex.
- Add a Sitemap: line with the full URL to your robots.txt, so every search engine can find the file without a manual submission.
- Use lastmod only when it is accurate. Google uses it when it is consistently correct, and ignores it when every page claims to have changed today.
- Regenerate the sitemap when you add or remove pages. A sitemap full of 404s and redirects wastes crawling and hides real problems.
- Most CMS platforms and frameworks can build a sitemap automatically. Use this tool for static sites, small sites and one-off lists.
Common mistakes and limits
- Mixing www and non-www, or http and httpsA sitemap should list URLs on the same host and protocol as the sitemap itself. The tool skips the others, so pick the address your site really uses.
- Expecting priority to change rankingsPriority only compares pages within your own site, and Google ignores both priority and changefreq. Well-linked, useful pages do far more.
- Setting every lastmod to todayIf every page always claims to be new, search engines learn to ignore the date. Use real modification dates, or leave the tag out.
- Listing redirected or noindex pagesThey send mixed signals. Put the final URL of each page in the sitemap, and leave out pages you have hidden from search.
- Thinking a sitemap gets pages indexedIt helps discovery. Whether a page is indexed still depends on its quality, duplicates and the other signals search engines use.