What is an XML sitemap used for?

An XML sitemap tells search engines which pages on your site are important and how often they change. It helps ensure all your pages get crawled and indexed, especially new or deep-linked pages that might not be discovered through regular crawling.

Where do I put the sitemap.xml file?

Upload it to the root directory of your website (e.g., https://example.com/sitemap.xml). Then submit the URL in Google Search Console (Sitemaps section) and Bing Webmaster Tools to ensure search engines find it.

What should I set for priority?

Priority is a hint to search engines about the relative importance of pages on your site. Use 1.0 for your homepage, 0.8 for main category/service pages, 0.5 (default) for regular content, and 0.3 for low-priority pages. Note: Google has stated they largely ignore priority values, but other search engines may use them.

How many URLs can a sitemap contain?

Per the sitemaps protocol, a single sitemap can contain up to 50,000 URLs and must be under 50MB uncompressed. If you have more URLs, you need a sitemap index file that references multiple sitemap files.

Should I include every page?

Include pages you want indexed. Exclude pages behind authentication, duplicate content pages, paginated archives (unless they have unique content), and utility pages (search results, login, etc.).

What does changefreq mean?

It tells search engines how frequently the content at each URL is likely to change: always, hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, or never. This is a hint, not a command -- crawlers may visit more or less often than specified.

Does this tool crawl my website?

No. You manually provide the URLs you want in the sitemap. For automated sitemap generation that crawls your site, use a website crawler or CMS plugin. This tool is for creating sitemaps from a known list of URLs.

Can I edit the sitemap after generating it?

Yes. The URL list persists in the tool until you clear it. You can add, remove, or modify URLs and regenerate the sitemap as many times as needed.

SEO

XML Sitemap Generator

Generate a valid XML sitemap from a list of URLs. Set priority, change frequency, and last modified date per URL.

100% free
No sign-up
No limits
Instant results

Default priority

0.5

Default changefreq

Paste URLs (one per line)

What this tool does

Generate valid XML sitemaps per the sitemaps.org protocol
Add URLs one-by-one or paste in bulk
Per-URL priority, changefreq, and lastmod settings
Default settings applied to all new URLs
Syntax-highlighted XML output
Download as sitemap.xml

Want the whole picture? Run 240+ checks on your site — free, 30 seconds, no signup.Run a free audit

The short version

What is XML Sitemap Generator?

An XML sitemap is a file that lists all important pages on your website so search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo can discover and crawl them efficiently.

The sitemaps protocol (sitemaps.org) defines the format, which includes the URL, last modification date, change frequency, and priority for each page. This tool generates a standards-compliant XML sitemap from your URLs, ready to upload to your web server root.

Step by step

How to use XML Sitemap Generator

1
Set default values
Choose the default priority (0.0 to 1.0) and change frequency (daily, weekly, monthly, etc.) that will be applied to all new URLs. You can override these per-URL later.
2
Add your URLs
Paste URLs in bulk (one per line) or add them one at a time. Each URL must start with http:// or https://. Duplicates and invalid URLs are flagged.
3
Customize per URL
For each URL, you can adjust the priority, change frequency, and last modified date individually. Expand any URL entry to see its settings.
4
Generate and download
Click Generate Sitemap. Review the XML output, then copy it to your clipboard or download it as sitemap.xml. Upload the file to your website root directory.

What's inside

Everything this tool
does for you

Generates valid XML following the sitemaps.org protocol spec
Bulk URL input -- paste hundreds of URLs at once
Per-URL priority, changefreq, and lastmod settings
Default values applied automatically to new URLs
URL validation (requires http/https scheme)
Duplicate detection prevents the same URL from appearing twice
One-click copy or download as sitemap.xml
Properly XML-escaped output (handles ampersands and special characters)

Keep going

Related free tools

All SEO tools

Meta Tag Generator

Create perfect SEO meta tags with OG + Twitter cards. Live character counters.

SEO

Meta Tag Analyzer

Analyze any URL's meta tags, OG tags, Twitter cards and SEO elements with scoring.

SEO

Open Graph Tag Generator

Generate Open Graph meta tags with live Facebook and LinkedIn preview.

SEO

Open Graph Checker

Check any URL's Open Graph tags and preview how links appear on social media.

SEO

Twitter Card Generator

Generate Twitter Card meta tags with live preview for summary and large image cards.

SEO

Robots.txt Generator

Build a robots.txt file with a visual editor. Add rules for any user agent.

SEO

Questions

Frequently asked questions

This tool fixed one thing.
Now fix the whole site.

Our scanner runs 240+ checks across 10 audit areas, ranks every issue by the score points it costs, and hands you the code to paste.

Run a free audit

240+ checksResults in 30sNo signup