An XML sitemap is a list of the URLs on your site that you want search engines to know about. It does not force indexing, but it does help crawlers find pages that are buried deep, poorly linked or newly published. This generator takes a plain list of URLs, one per line, and wraps them in a valid urlset document using the sitemaps.org 0.9 schema, with optional lastmod, changefreq and priority values applied to every entry.
Lines that are not absolute http or https URLs are skipped and listed back to you rather than silently dropped, duplicates are removed, and ampersands and angle brackets inside URLs are escaped so the file parses. One sitemap file may contain at most 50,000 URLs and 50MB uncompressed, so the tool warns you as you approach that limit and tells you when to split the list across several files behind a sitemap index.
How to use the XML Sitemap Generator
- Paste your URLs into the box, one complete URL per line, each starting with http:// or https://.
- Pick a changefreq and priority, or set either to omit if you would rather leave the tag out.
- Choose whether lastmod should be today's date, a custom date, or left off entirely.
- Click Generate Sitemap, review the skipped lines report, then Download sitemap.xml and upload it to your site root.
Frequently asked questions
How many URLs can one sitemap file hold?
The specification caps a single file at 50,000 URLs and 50MB uncompressed. Beyond that you split the list into several sitemap files and reference them from a sitemap index file, which itself can list up to 50,000 sitemaps. Gzip compression is allowed and the 50MB limit applies before compression.
Do changefreq and priority actually affect rankings?
No. Google has said it ignores both. Priority is a relative hint about pages within your own site, never a ranking signal, and changefreq is treated as a rough suggestion at best. Lastmod is the one that carries weight, provided it reflects genuine content changes.
Where should I put the sitemap file?
Usually at the site root as /sitemap.xml. A sitemap can only list URLs on the same host and path level as itself or deeper, so a file at the root covers the whole site. Add a Sitemap line to robots.txt and submit the URL in Google Search Console.
Should I include redirects, noindex pages or canonicalised URLs?
No. List only the final, canonical, indexable URLs that return a 200 status. Including redirects, 404s, noindex pages or non-canonical duplicates sends mixed signals and shows up as errors in Search Console coverage reports.