<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
<url>
<loc>https://example.com/</loc>
<lastmod>2026-10-13</lastmod>
<changefreq>weekly</changefreq>
<priority>1.0</priority>
</url>
</urlset>What is an XML sitemap?
An XML sitemap is a manifest file — usually at https://yoursite.com/sitemap.xml — listing the URLs on your site you want search engines to know about, along with optional metadata: lastmod (when it last changed), changefreq (how often it changes) and priority (relative importance versus your other pages). Submitting it through Google Search Console or Bing Webmaster Tools, or referencing it from robots.txt, helps crawlers discover pages faster than relying on internal links alone — especially important for new sites, large sites, or pages with few inbound links.
When to use it
Every site with more than a handful of pages benefits from a sitemap, but it matters most for large e-commerce catalogs, content sites publishing frequently, and sites where new pages aren't well-linked internally yet. Keep the sitemap limited to canonical, indexable URLs — leave out pages you've noindexed, redirected, or blocked in robots.txt, since including them just sends mixed signals. Google mostly ignores changefreq and priority now and infers freshness from actual crawling, but lastmod is still used as a signal for re-crawl priority when it's accurate.
Example
For a documentation site at https://devramp.io, you'd list each guide URL — https://devramp.io/docs/getting-started, https://devramp.io/docs/api-reference — with lastmod set to the date that page's content actually changed (not today's date on every regeneration, which trains crawlers to distrust the field). Set changefreq to weekly for actively edited docs and priority to 0.8 for your most important landing pages, 0.5 for the rest.
How to use the sitemap.xml Generator tool
- 1
Add each URL
List every canonical, indexable page you want crawled — skip redirects, noindexed pages, and duplicates.
- 2
Set an accurate lastmod
Use the real last-changed date per page; inaccurate or always-current dates reduce crawlers' trust in the field.
- 3
Set changefreq and priority
These are hints, not guarantees — search engines still crawl based on observed behavior.
- 4
Download and reference it
Save as sitemap.xml at your domain root and add a Sitemap: line to robots.txt, or submit it directly in Search Console.
Frequently asked questions
How many URLs can one sitemap file hold?
Up to 50,000 URLs or 50MB uncompressed per file, per the sitemap protocol. Larger sites use a sitemap index file that references multiple individual sitemap files.
Should I include pages blocked by robots.txt or marked noindex?
No. Listing a URL in the sitemap while also blocking or noindexing it sends contradictory signals to crawlers — only include URLs you actually want indexed.
Does priority affect my Google ranking?
No. Priority and changefreq are hints for crawl scheduling, not ranking factors. Google has stated it largely ignores both now and relies on its own crawl-frequency modeling instead.
Is my data uploaded anywhere when I generate this?
No. The XML is assembled entirely in your browser from the URLs and fields you enter; nothing is sent to a server until you choose to download or copy it.
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