Free XML Sitemap Generator
Create valid, Google-ready XML sitemaps instantly. Supports standard, video, image, news, and sitemap index formats. Fix crawled-not-indexed issues and get your pages ranked faster.
🗂️ Select Sitemap Type
✅ Best for most websites. Lists pages with optional lastmod, changefreq, and priority metadata.
🔗 Enter Your URLs
Only include canonical, indexable URLs (HTTP 200). Exclude noindex pages, redirects, and admin URLs.
⚙️ Sitemap Settings
Used in sitemap index URLs and media file paths
Your sitemap will appear here
Enter your URLs above, configure your settings, and click Generate Sitemap to create a Google-ready XML sitemap file
What Is an XML Sitemap and Why Does It Matter for SEO?
An XML sitemap is a structured file — formatted in Extensible Markup Language — that serves as a roadmap of your entire website for search engine crawlers. It explicitly lists every URL you want indexed, along with optional metadata such as when each page was last modified, how frequently it changes, and its relative priority compared to other pages on your site. Think of it as a table of contents that you hand directly to Google, Bing, and other search engines to ensure they never miss any page on your website.
Without an XML sitemap, search engines must discover your pages organically through internal links, backlinks, and other crawl signals. This passive approach works reasonably well for well-established websites with strong internal linking architectures. However, for new websites, recently launched pages, deep content hierarchies, or pages that are only loosely connected to the rest of your site through internal links, relying on crawl discovery alone can mean weeks or even months of delay before new content gets indexed and begins ranking.
The practical impact of a properly configured XML sitemap is significant: it helps search engines prioritize their crawl budget on your most important pages, accelerates the indexing of new content, provides explicit signals about your content update cadence, and directly reduces the risk of "Crawled — currently not indexed" errors in Google Search Console — one of the most frustrating and common technical SEO issues website owners face today.
How to Create and Submit an XML Sitemap in 6 Steps
From generation to Google Search Console submission — the complete process
Enter Your URLs
Paste all the URLs you want indexed, one per line. Include only canonical, indexable URLs that return HTTP 200 status. Exclude redirects, noindex pages, and duplicate content.
Select Sitemap Type
Choose Standard for most websites, Video for video content, Image for image-heavy sites, News for publishers, or Sitemap Index for sites with 50,000+ URLs.
Configure Settings
Set default priority (0.0–1.0), change frequency, and toggle lastmod inclusion. These metadata fields help Google understand your content's update patterns.
Generate & Download
Click Generate Sitemap to create your perfectly formatted XML file. Preview the output directly on screen, then download it with one click.
Upload to Root Directory
Upload the file to your website's root folder so it's accessible at yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml. Also reference it in your robots.txt file.
Submit to Search Console
In Google Search Console, navigate to Indexing → Sitemaps, paste your sitemap URL, and click Submit. Google will begin crawling within hours.
🤖 Add Your Sitemap to robots.txt
Always reference your sitemap in your robots.txt file. This ensures every search engine crawler — not just Google — discovers your sitemap automatically without manual submission.
User-agent: *
Disallow: /admin/
Disallow: /private/
Sitemap: https://yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml
5 Types of XML Sitemaps — Which One Do You Need?
Each sitemap type serves a specific purpose in Google's indexing ecosystem
Standard XML Sitemap
Most CommonBest for: All websitesThe foundation of any technical SEO strategy. A standard sitemap lists your website's URLs with optional lastmod, changefreq, and priority metadata. Google supports up to 50,000 URLs per sitemap file and a maximum file size of 50MB uncompressed. Every website — regardless of size or industry — should maintain an up-to-date standard XML sitemap.
Sitemap Index
For Large SitesBest for: Sites with 50,000+ URLsWhen your website exceeds 50,000 URLs or 50MB per sitemap file, you need a sitemap index — a parent XML file that lists the locations of multiple child sitemaps. Google supports sitemap index files containing up to 50,000 child sitemaps, meaning a properly structured sitemap index can reference up to 2.5 billion individual URLs.
Video Sitemap
Video Rich ResultsBest for: Video content publishersA video sitemap uses Google's video sitemap extension to provide rich metadata about video content hosted on your pages. Required fields include the video title, description, thumbnail URL, and content URL. Optional fields include duration, publication date, and rating data. Videos submitted via a properly structured video sitemap are eligible to appear in Google Video Search and as video rich results in standard search results.
Image Sitemap
Google Image SearchBest for: Image-heavy websitesAn image sitemap uses Google's image sitemap extension to help Google discover and index images that might otherwise be difficult to crawl — particularly images loaded via JavaScript, iframes, or complex lazy-loading implementations. Each image entry can include the image URL, optional title, optional caption, and optional geo-location data. Image sitemaps are essential for photography portfolios, product-heavy e-commerce sites, and stock image platforms.
News Sitemap
Google NewsBest for: News publishers & blogsA news sitemap is specifically designed for Google News inclusion and requires Google News publisher approval. It must only contain articles published within the last 48 hours, and each entry must include the publication name, language, article title, and precise publication date and time in ISO 8601 format. News sitemaps enable near-real-time indexing of breaking news content and are required for articles to appear in the Google News tab and Top Stories carousel in search results.
XML Sitemaps and Google Indexing: The Complete Playbook
Understanding Crawl Budget and Sitemap Efficiency
Crawl budget refers to the number of URLs Googlebot will crawl on your website within a given timeframe. For large websites, crawl budget management is a critical SEO discipline. Googlebot does not have unlimited time to crawl every page on every website — it must prioritize based on signals like page authority, server speed, crawl demand, and crawl rate limits.
Your XML sitemap directly influences how Googlebot allocates its crawl budget on your site. By submitting a well-curated sitemap that only includes your highest-quality, canonical URLs, you guide Googlebot toward the pages that matter most. Conversely, including low-quality, thin, or duplicate content URLs in your sitemap can waste crawl budget on pages that will never rank — and may send negative quality signals about your overall site.
Fixing "Crawled — Currently Not Indexed" Errors
The "Crawled — currently not indexed" status in Google Search Console is one of the most common frustrations for website owners. It means Google has visited the page but decided not to add it to its index — despite no explicit noindex tag blocking it. This decision is typically driven by perceived low content quality, thin content, near-duplicate content, or poor page experience signals.
Resubmitting an updated sitemap alone will not fix this issue if the underlying content problems remain. The correct approach is a combination of: (1) auditing and improving the content quality of affected pages, (2) strengthening internal links to those pages from high-authority pages on your site, (3) removing or consolidating thin pages via canonical tags or redirects, and then (4) resubmitting your sitemap and using the URL Inspection tool in Search Console to request re-indexing. A sitemap is the delivery mechanism — quality content is what earns the index spot.
Sitemap Best Practices for E-Commerce Websites
E-commerce websites face unique sitemap challenges because they often have thousands of product pages, category pages, filtered search pages, and pagination URLs — many of which should not be indexed. The most effective e-commerce sitemap strategy separates content into multiple focused sitemaps: one for category and subcategory pages, one for product pages, one for blog content, and a sitemap index that references all of them.
Critically, e-commerce sites must exclude faceted navigation URLs (filtered pages with parameters like ?color=red or ?size=large) from their sitemaps unless those pages have unique, valuable content. These parameter-based URLs are a leading cause of crawl budget waste and duplicate content issues. Use the rel="canonical" tag and Google Search Console's URL Parameters tool to manage these effectively alongside your sitemap strategy.
Dynamic vs. Static Sitemaps: Which Approach Is Right for You?
A static sitemap is a manually created XML file that you upload to your server and update periodically. It works well for small websites with fewer than 200 pages that change infrequently. Our generator produces static sitemap files that you can download and use immediately.
A dynamic sitemap is automatically generated by your CMS or web framework every time it is requested, always reflecting your site's current URL structure. WordPress users can achieve this with plugins like Yoast SEO, Rank Math, or All in One SEO. Next.js developers can implement dynamic sitemaps using the built-in Metadata API or libraries like next-sitemap. For actively growing websites publishing new content frequently, a dynamic sitemap is strongly preferred because it eliminates the risk of your sitemap becoming outdated.
Priority and Change Frequency: What Google Actually Uses
Many SEO guides overstate the importance of the <priority> and <changefreq> sitemap fields. Google has publicly confirmed that it uses these values only as hints — not directives. Googlebot makes its own crawl frequency and crawl priority decisions based on PageRank, crawl demand, server health, and hundreds of other internal signals.
The most important sitemap element is <lastmod>— the last modified date. When Googlebot sees a recently updated lastmod date, it is more likely to recrawl that URL and pick up content changes. For this reason, always update your sitemap's lastmod values when you make meaningful content updates to a page — and avoid mass-updating all lastmod dates simultaneously without actual content changes, as Google detects and discounts artificially inflated lastmod timestamps.
XML Sitemap Best Practices Checklist
Follow these rules to ensure your sitemap meets Google's standards
Only include URLs that return HTTP 200 status codes
Only include canonical URLs — not alternate or redirect versions
Keep each sitemap file under 50,000 URLs and 50MB uncompressed
Use a sitemap index file if your site exceeds 50,000 URLs
Always reference your sitemap URL in your robots.txt file
Update lastmod dates only when content is meaningfully changed
Submit your sitemap in Google Search Console and monitor for errors
Use absolute URLs (https://domain.com/page) not relative paths (/page)
Do not include URLs with noindex meta tags in your sitemap
Do not include 301/302 redirect URLs — only the final destination URL
Do not include session IDs or tracking parameters in sitemap URLs
Do not mass-update all lastmod dates without actual content changes
Frequently Asked Questions
Everything you need to know about XML sitemaps and Google indexing
What is an XML sitemap and why do I need one?▼
An XML sitemap is a structured file that lists all the important URLs on your website and tells search engines exactly which pages to crawl and index. Without a sitemap, search engine bots rely entirely on internal links to discover your content — meaning weakly-linked pages may never get indexed. A properly formatted XML sitemap accelerates indexing, ensures new content is discovered quickly, and is a foundational technical SEO requirement for any website.
How do I submit my sitemap to Google Search Console?▼
Upload your sitemap.xml to your website root (accessible at yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml). Then in Google Search Console, go to Indexing → Sitemaps, enter your sitemap URL in the field, and click Submit. Google will begin processing within hours. You can monitor indexing status, errors, and discovered URLs directly in the Sitemaps report.
What is the difference between a standard sitemap and a sitemap index?▼
A standard sitemap can contain a maximum of 50,000 URLs per file and must not exceed 50MB uncompressed. If your website has more than 50,000 pages, you need a sitemap index — a parent XML file that references multiple individual child sitemaps. Large e-commerce sites, news portals, and content-heavy websites typically require a sitemap index structure.
Does having a sitemap guarantee Google will index my pages?▼
No — a sitemap does not guarantee indexing. Submitting a sitemap tells Google which pages exist and requests crawling, but indexing decisions depend on content quality, page experience, duplicate content detection, and other ranking signals. Pages that are 'Crawled — currently not indexed' need both content improvements and a fresh sitemap resubmission to resolve the issue.
How often should I update and resubmit my sitemap?▼
Update your sitemap whenever you publish new content, update existing pages, or remove outdated URLs. High-frequency publishers should update daily. Static or slow-changing sites can update monthly. Most modern CMS platforms and frameworks support automatic dynamic sitemap generation, eliminating the need for manual updates entirely.
Should I include all URLs on my site in the sitemap?▼
No — only include canonical, indexable URLs returning HTTP 200 status. Exclude: noindex pages, redirect URLs, pagination pages without unique content, admin pages, thin content pages, and parameter-based faceted navigation URLs. A focused, curated sitemap of your best canonical URLs is always more effective than including every URL on your site.
What is a video sitemap and when should I use it?▼
A video sitemap provides Google with structured metadata about videos hosted on your pages — title, description, thumbnail, content URL, duration, and publication date. Use a video sitemap if your website hosts video content you want appearing in Google Video Search results and as rich results in standard search. Without it, Google may still find your videos, but a dedicated sitemap significantly improves indexing speed and accuracy.
What should I set for priority and changefreq in my sitemap?▼
Priority (0.0–1.0) is relative to your own site only — your homepage typically gets 1.0, main category pages 0.8, individual posts 0.5. Changefreq hints at update frequency — 'daily' for news, 'weekly' for blogs, 'monthly' for static pages. Note that Google treats both as hints, not instructions. The most impactful field is lastmod — update it only when you make meaningful content changes.
Complete Your Technical SEO Toolkit
Use these free tools alongside your sitemap for a complete on-page and technical SEO strategy
Robots.txt Generator
Create a valid robots.txt file to control search engine crawling
Meta Tags Generator
Generate SEO-optimized title tags and meta descriptions
Canonical URL Checker
Verify canonical tags and avoid duplicate content issues
Schema Markup Generator
Create structured data JSON-LD for rich search results
Get Your Pages Indexed — Start Now, Free
Paste your URLs above, generate a valid XML sitemap in seconds, and submit it to Google Search Console today. No account needed. No limits. No watermarks.
Generate My Sitemap