XML Sitemap Generator

What is the XML Sitemap Generator?

The XML Sitemap Generator is a free tool that crawls a website by following its links and writes a sitemap.xml file listing every same-domain URL it visited. You choose how many pages to crawl, from 10 to 200. The result shows the XML to copy or download, the pages found and how long the crawl took.

How to use the XML Sitemap Generator

1. Enter your domain, such as example.com.
2. Set Pages to crawl between 10 and 200. The default is 50, and higher numbers take longer.
3. Press Generate. The tool follows links from page to page on your domain, up to the number of pages you set.
4. Read the pages found, page limit and crawl time. A notice appears when the crawl stopped at your limit and the site may have more pages.
5. Check the list of pages crawled, then press Copy or Download to get sitemap.xml.

How does a crawl-built sitemap find pages?

It follows links. The crawl starts at the address you enter, reads each HTML page, and queues every link that stays on the same domain, up to your page limit. It drops # fragments and ? query strings, so one page is not listed twice.

That makes the page list a useful check in itself. A page you expected but do not see is one nothing links to, called an orphan page. If a crawl cannot reach a page by following links, a search engine starting from your homepage cannot either, so add a link to that page as well as a sitemap entry.

What should you check before uploading the sitemap?

Check that every URL is a working page you want indexed. A sitemap should list only pages you want in search, so remove any URL that redirects, returns an error, points at a file such as a PDF, is blocked in robots.txt or carries a noindex tag.

Then set the dates. Every entry gets today's date as <lastmod>, weekly as <changefreq> and 0.8 as <priority>. Google trusts <lastmod> only when the dates are accurate, so replace them with each page's real update date or delete the <lastmod> lines.

Should you use this or your CMS sitemap?

Use your CMS sitemap when you have one. WordPress, Shopify and most other platforms generate a sitemap that updates as you publish.

A crawl-built sitemap suits a static site, a hand-coded site, or a platform whose own sitemap is missing or broken. It is a snapshot, so generate it again whenever you add or remove pages.