Sitemap XML Generator

What this tool is used for

• Producing a sitemap for a site with no build step to generate one.
• Creating a sitemap from a list of URLs you already have.
• Producing a supplementary sitemap for a section the main one omits.
• Getting the element structure right before writing a generator.
• Building a sitemap to submit after a migration.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does a sitemap make Google index my pages?

No — it is a hint about what exists, not an instruction. Google decides what to index on its own assessment of quality and duplication. A sitemap mainly helps with discovery: deep pages, a new site with few inbound links, and pages no internal link reaches.

Do changefreq and priority do anything?

Google has said publicly it ignores both. `lastmod` is the one it does use, and only when it is consistently accurate — if every URL claims today's date, the signal is discarded. Set `lastmod` honestly or leave it out.

What are the size limits?

50,000 URLs and 50 MB uncompressed per file. Past that, split into several sitemaps and list them in a sitemap index — which is itself capped at 50,000 sitemaps. Gzipping is allowed and the 50 MB limit applies to the uncompressed size.

Which URLs belong in it?

Only canonical, indexable, 200-returning pages. Including a redirect, a 404, a `noindex` page, or a non-canonical duplicate sends contradictory signals — and Search Console reports them as errors against your sitemap rather than ignoring them.

Where should it live?

At a path that covers the URLs it lists — a sitemap at `/blog/sitemap.xml` may only reference `/blog/` URLs. Reference it from `robots.txt` with a `Sitemap:` line, which every major crawler reads, and submit it in Search Console for the reporting.

Should I split a sitemap even when under the limit?

Often yes. Grouping by section or content type means Search Console reports indexing per group, so you can see that product pages are covered while help articles are not — a signal a single combined file hides.

Why do my lastmod dates get ignored?

Because they are frequently wrong. A generator that stamps every URL with the build date tells search engines nothing, and once the values are shown to be unreliable they stop being used. Only set `lastmod` when the content genuinely changed.

Common errors and gotchas

• Including URLs that redirect, are canonicalised elsewhere or return 404, which wastes crawl budget.
• Exceeding the 50,000 URL or 50 MB limit rather than splitting into an index.
• Using relative URLs, which are invalid in a sitemap.
• Setting every priority to 1.0, which makes the field meaningless.
• Treating inclusion as a guarantee of indexing, which it never is.