Free XML Sitemap Generator
Enter your website URLs and generate a valid XML sitemap file for search engine crawling and indexing.
Scans links found on the page you provide (one level deep) — not a full-site crawl.
Sitemap Generator turns a list of your site's URLs into a valid XML sitemap file, which helps search engines discover and crawl your pages, especially ones that aren't well linked internally.
What is an XML sitemap, and what does a sitemap generator actually do?
An XML sitemap is a file listing the URLs a website wants search engines to know about, which helps discovery especially on large or frequently updated sites where crawlers might not find every page through internal links alone. A generator builds that properly structured XML file from a list of URLs automatically, saving the manual work of writing the syntax by hand.
Does every website actually need a sitemap, and how do you submit it to Google?
Not every site strictly needs one — but it's genuinely useful for larger sites, new sites, or any site where crawlers might not easily discover every page through internal links. Submit it through Google Search Console, and also reference it in your robots.txt with a Sitemap directive; a common location for the file itself is /sitemap.xml, though any accessible URL works as long as search engines can reach it.
Does a sitemap actually improve rankings, or guarantee Google indexes every URL in it?
No to both. A sitemap's purpose is URL discovery and crawl guidance, not a ranking boost — listing a URL in your sitemap doesn't directly help it rank higher. It doesn't guarantee indexing either: submitting a URL in a sitemap doesn't force Google to crawl or index it, since that decision depends on many other factors like content quality and how the page fits into the rest of the site.
Which URLs should actually be included, and how large can a sitemap get?
Focus on important, indexable, canonical URLs you actually want discovered — not every URL that technically exists on the server, and generally not pages marked noindex, since including them sends conflicting signals. A single sitemap file has real limits, commonly up to 50,000 URLs or 50MB uncompressed, so very large sites split their URLs across multiple sitemap files combined through a sitemap index — an XML file that simply lists those other sitemap files.
What's the difference between an XML and HTML sitemap, and how often should it update?
An XML sitemap is built specifically for crawlers to parse; an HTML sitemap is a human-readable page of links for actual visitors — they serve different audiences and can coexist on the same site without conflict. Update the XML sitemap whenever important URLs are added, removed or significantly changed; automated generation keeps it current without manual upkeep, which is exactly what a generator like this one is for.
Why did Google, Yahoo and Microsoft actually agree on a shared sitemap format?
Because before they did, submitting your site to multiple search engines meant building a slightly different sitemap for each one — genuinely wasteful duplicated effort for every website on the internet. Google launched the original Sitemaps protocol on its own in June 2005, then deliberately published it under a Creative Commons license specifically to encourage other search engines to adopt the same format rather than build a competing one. It worked: in November 2006, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft jointly announced support for the same protocol, formalized as version 0.9 and documented at the newly-created sitemaps.org — a genuinely rare moment of three fierce search competitors cooperating on shared infrastructure, purely because a single universal sitemap format was so obviously better for the entire web than three incompatible ones.
Is Sitemap Generator free to use?
Yes. Sitemap Generator is completely free, with no sign-up and no usage limits.
Do I need to install any software?
No installation is required. Sitemap Generator runs in your browser and fetches up-to-date public data from our server to show accurate results.
Is my data kept private?
No personal file or text is uploaded. We only request the public data needed to show your result (such as exchange rates, official statistics, or location data).