Sitemap Generator
Generate XML sitemap for search engines
Sitemap Best Practices
- • Include all important pages
- • Update regularly
- • Submit to Google Search Console
- • Max 50,000 URLs per sitemap
Free XML Sitemap Generator - Improve Search Engine Discovery
Welcome to DevToolVault's free XML sitemap generator, an essential tool for SEO and webmasters. Create properly formatted sitemaps that help search engines discover and index all your important content—processed entirely in your browser for complete privacy.
Understanding XML Sitemaps
An XML sitemap is a roadmap of your website that tells search engines about pages available for crawling. While search engines can discover pages through links, sitemaps ensure they find every important page, especially on large sites, new sites, or pages with limited internal linking. Think of it as submitting a complete index of your content directly to search engines.
How to Use This Sitemap Generator
Enter your URLs one per line in the text area. Include the full URL with protocol (https://example.com/page). Click "Generate Sitemap" to create XML with automatic lastmod dates. Copy the output or download as sitemap.xml, then upload to your website's root directory.
Sitemap XML Structure
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
<url>
<loc>https://example.com/</loc>
<lastmod>2024-01-15</lastmod>
<changefreq>weekly</changefreq>
<priority>1.0</priority>
</url>
</urlset>What to Include (and Exclude)
Include: canonical versions of pages, important landing pages, blog posts, product pages, category pages. Exclude: duplicate content, paginated pages beyond page 1, filtered/sorted URLs, admin pages, pages with noindex, URLs returning non-200 status codes, and URLs blocked in robots.txt.
Submitting Your Sitemap
After generating your sitemap: upload to your website root (https://yoursite.com/sitemap.xml), submit via Google Search Console's Sitemap section, and add to robots.txt with the Sitemap directive. Monitor Search Console for errors or warnings about sitemap issues.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is an XML sitemap and why do I need one?
An XML sitemap is a file listing all important URLs on your website, helping search engines discover and index your content. It's especially useful for large sites, new sites, sites with poor internal linking, or pages with rich media content.
What should I include in my sitemap?
Include all important, indexable pages: main content pages, blog posts, product pages, category pages. Exclude: admin pages, duplicate content, paginated archives, pages with noindex tags, and URLs blocked by robots.txt.
What do priority and changefreq mean?
Priority (0.0-1.0) suggests relative importance of pages within your site—not vs. other sites. Changefreq hints how often content changes (daily, weekly, monthly). Both are hints; search engines may ignore them. Focus on lastmod dates instead.
How large can my sitemap be?
Each sitemap can have max 50,000 URLs and be up to 50MB uncompressed. For larger sites, create multiple sitemaps and reference them in a sitemap index file. Gzip compression reduces file size significantly.
How do I submit my sitemap to Google?
Submit via Google Search Console under Sitemaps section. You can also add the sitemap URL to your robots.txt file (Sitemap: https://example.com/sitemap.xml). Google will discover it automatically from robots.txt.
Should I include images and videos in sitemaps?
Yes, for rich media! Image sitemaps help Google discover images not found through standard crawling. Video sitemaps enable video-specific search features. Use separate or combined sitemaps with appropriate namespaces.
How often should I update my sitemap?
Update whenever you add, remove, or significantly modify pages. Dynamic sites should regenerate sitemaps automatically. The lastmod date is the most important field—only update it when content actually changes.
Is my data secure when generating sitemaps?
Yes! Our sitemap generator processes everything locally in your browser. Your URLs never leave your device—no server uploads, no logs, no tracking. Safe for generating sitemaps with internal URLs or sensitive paths.
Related SEO Tools: Try our Robots.txt Generator, Meta Tag Generator, and Redirect Checker for more SEO optimization tools.