Crawling
Sitemap Generator
Validated, correctly escaped sitemaps that follow the sitemaps.org protocol, ready to upload.
- Runs in your browser
- Nothing uploaded
The tool
Paste URLs one per line, or a CSV with a loc column, or upload a file. Nothing leaves your browser.
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Everything you enter is processed by JavaScript in your own browser. Nothing is uploaded to us or to anyone else, which you can confirm in your browser network tab.
What this tool checks
- Accepts a plain list of URLs, or CSV with loc, lastmod, image and hreflang columns
- Rejects relative and non-HTTP URLs and URLs over 2,048 characters, and removes duplicates
- Validates lastmod dates in W3C Datetime format and flags dates in the future
- Escapes ampersands, quotes and angle brackets so the XML stays valid
- Adds image and xhtml:link alternate entries, and warns when alternates are not reciprocal or omit the page itself
- Splits output at 50,000 URLs or 50 MB and writes a sitemap index pointing to each file
- Warns when URLs span more than one host, since a sitemap normally covers its own host only
How to read the results
- Check the summary: URLs included, URLs dropped and warnings.
- Fix anything dropped in the issues table, usually relative paths or typing mistakes, then generate again.
- Download each file, or the ZIP when there are several, and upload them to your site.
- Add the Sitemap line shown to robots.txt and submit the sitemap, or the index, in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.
About this tool
What a sitemap is for
An XML sitemap lists the URLs you want search engines to know about, optionally with the date each one last changed. It helps crawlers find pages that are new, deep in the site, or poorly linked. It does not replace internal links, and it does not make a page rank. List only canonical URLs that return 200 and that you want indexed: no redirects, no noindex pages, no duplicates with tracking parameters.
The format
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
<url>
<loc>https://example.com/products/?colour=red&size=m</loc>
<lastmod>2026-10-01</lastmod>
</url>
</urlset>Every loc must be a full URL, including the protocol. Characters such as & must be escaped as entities, which is the most common reason hand-written sitemaps fail to parse. lastmod uses the W3C Datetime format, either a date such as 2026-10-01 or a full timestamp with a time zone. Google uses lastmod when it is consistently accurate, so set it to when the main content changed, not to the time the sitemap was generated.
Size limits and sitemap indexes
A single sitemap may hold at most 50,000 URLs and 50 MB uncompressed. Larger sites split their URLs across several files and list those files in a sitemap index. You then submit just the index. This generator splits automatically and asks where the files will live so the index points to the right addresses. A sitemap should sit at or above the folder of the URLs it lists, and normally on the same host.
Images and alternate languages
Image entries help Google find images that are loaded in ways it might otherwise miss. Use a CSV column named image, separating several images with |.
For multilingual sites, add one column per language, such as hreflang:en and hreflang:de. Each URL in the group should list every alternate, including itself, and every alternate should list the others back. The generator warns when that is not the case.
loc,lastmod,hreflang:en,hreflang:de
https://example.com/,2026-10-01,https://example.com/,https://example.com/de/
https://example.com/de/,2026-10-01,https://example.com/,https://example.com/de/Publishing and submitting
Upload the files to your site, then tell search engines about them in two ways. Add a Sitemap: line with the full URL to robots.txt, which any crawler can read. Then submit the sitemap or the index in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools, where you can also see errors and how many URLs were processed. Google retired its sitemap ping endpoint in 2023, so there is no need to ping it. Sites that publish often can also notify Bing and other participating engines through IndexNow.
If your site runs on WordPress, the core sitemap at /wp-sitemap.xml or your SEO plugin’s sitemap usually keeps itself up to date. Use this generator for static sites, for sections outside your CMS, or to check what a correct sitemap for a set of URLs looks like.
Limits and honest caveats
- The generator only knows the URLs you give it. It does not crawl the site or check that each URL returns 200 and is indexable.
- Very large lists are limited by your browser's memory. Inputs over 20 MB are refused.
- Google ignores changefreq and priority, so they are left out unless you ask for them.
- A sitemap is a hint. Listing a URL does not guarantee it will be crawled or indexed.
What people use it for
- Creating a sitemap for a static or hand-built site without a CMS
- Building a sitemap for a migration from a list of the new URLs
- Adding hreflang alternates for a multilingual site from a spreadsheet
- Splitting a large export into compliant files with a sitemap index
- Checking a URL export for duplicates, relative links and bad dates before submission
Documentation and references
Questions
Questions about this tool
The things clients actually want to know — costs, timelines, ownership and what happens after launch.
Up to 50,000 URLs and 50 MB uncompressed. Beyond that, split into several sitemaps and submit a sitemap index.
Google ignores both. They are left out by default to keep files small, but you can include them for other search engines.
No. Google retired the sitemap ping endpoint in 2023. Reference the sitemap in robots.txt and submit it in Search Console.
Normally a sitemap covers its own host. Cross-host sitemaps need verified ownership of both sites in Search Console, so the generator warns about mixed hosts.
No. Parsing, validation and file generation all happen in your browser.
Documentation last reviewed: by the Best Web Developer engineering team.
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