Understanding XML Sitemaps
An XML sitemap is your website's roadmap for search engines. It lists all the important URLs you want Google, Bing, and other crawlers to discover and index. Without a sitemap, search engines must rely on internal links to find your content—potentially missing important pages.
“A sitemap is like giving search engines a complete directory of your website, ensuring no page is left behind.”— Google Search Central
Key Elements
loc specifies the URL location. lastmod tells search engines when the page was last updated. changefreq suggests how often the page changes. priority indicates relative importance within your site (0.0 to 1.0).
🔧 Pro Tips
- Keep your sitemap under 50MB and 50,000 URLs
- Use sitemap index files for larger sites
- Submit your sitemap via Google Search Console
- Update
lastmodonly when content actually changes
This tool generates valid XML sitemaps following the sitemaps.org protocol. Add URLs individually or in bulk, customize metadata, and download the complete sitemap. All processing happens locally—your URLs never leave your browser.