Where do I upload the sitemap.xml file?

Anywhere on your site, but the root is the convention: https://yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml. The location matters because a sitemap may only list URLs at or below its own directory. A file at /blog/sitemap.xml cannot legally list /pricing, while one at the root can list everything. After uploading, declare it in robots.txt and submit it in the Sitemaps report in Search Console.

Do changefreq and priority actually do anything?

Google ignores both. It said so publicly in 2023 and has not changed position since — the values were too often set to 1.0 across every page to carry any signal. Bing and Yandex still read them. The elements are harmless to include, so this tool leaves them optional: turn them on for other engines, turn them off for a smaller file.

What date format does lastmod need?

W3C Datetime — either YYYY-MM-DD or a full timestamp like 2026-09-20T14:30:00+00:00. US-style 09/20/2026 is rejected by the parser. Unlike changefreq, Google does use lastmod, but only if it trusts it: setting it to today across your whole site every night is how sites teach Google to ignore the field entirely.

What happens if I have more than 50,000 URLs?

A single sitemap is capped at 50,000 URLs or 50 MB uncompressed, whichever comes first. Paste more than that and this tool splits the list into sitemap-1.xml, sitemap-2.xml, and so on, then builds a sitemap index at sitemap.xml pointing at all of them. You upload every file and submit only the index.

Why does my sitemap fail to parse in Search Console?

Nine times out of ten it is an unescaped ampersand. A URL like /search?q=shoes&sort=price has to be written as /search?q=shoes&sort=price inside the loc element, or the XML is malformed and the whole file is rejected. This generator escapes &, , quotes, and apostrophes automatically. The other common cause is a byte order mark or stray whitespace before the XML declaration.

Which URLs should I leave out?

Anything that is not the canonical, indexable version of a page: redirects, noindex pages, URLs blocked in robots.txt, paginated duplicates, and pages whose canonical tag points somewhere else. Search Console flags these as errors or warnings, and a sitemap full of them makes the report useless for spotting real problems. List only the pages you want in search results.

Does a sitemap help my rankings?

No. It helps discovery, which is a different thing. A sitemap tells crawlers which URLs exist, so new and deeply buried pages get found faster. It does not make any of them rank higher, and a small site with good internal linking often gets crawled fine without one. It becomes genuinely useful past a few hundred pages, or when pages are not linked from anywhere.

XML Sitemap Generator — Build sitemap.xml Online Free

Base URL (optional, resolves bare paths)

Change frequency

URLs — one per line, optional , date, changefreq, priority after each

Last modified

Priority

Your sitemap.xml —

Download

Paste your URLs one per line and get a sitemap.xml that validates in Google Search Console. Ampersands in query strings are escaped properly, duplicates are dropped, and lists past 50,000 URLs are split into numbered files with a sitemap index on top. You can set lastmod, changefreq, and priority globally or override them per row.

How it works

1
Paste your URLs One per line. Full URLs, bare paths like /pricing, or a column pasted out of a spreadsheet all work — add a base URL and the paths get resolved against it. Blank lines and lines starting with # are ignored.
2
Set lastmod, changefreq, and priority Pick defaults for every URL, or append per-row values after a comma: /blog/post, 2026-09-20, weekly, 0.8. Auto priority scores by path depth, so the home page gets 1.0 and deep pages get less.
3
Download and submit it Read the warnings, hit Download, and upload sitemap.xml to your site root. Then add the line Sitemap: https://yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml to robots.txt and submit the URL under Sitemaps in Search Console.

Your data stays private

All processing happens entirely in your browser. No files, text, or data are ever sent to our servers. You can disconnect from the internet and this tool will still work.

Frequently asked questions

Where do I upload the sitemap.xml file?: Anywhere on your site, but the root is the convention: https://yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml. The location matters because a sitemap may only list URLs at or below its own directory. A file at /blog/sitemap.xml cannot legally list /pricing, while one at the root can list everything. After uploading, declare it in robots.txt and submit it in the Sitemaps report in Search Console.
Do changefreq and priority actually do anything?: Google ignores both. It said so publicly in 2023 and has not changed position since — the values were too often set to 1.0 across every page to carry any signal. Bing and Yandex still read them. The elements are harmless to include, so this tool leaves them optional: turn them on for other engines, turn them off for a smaller file.
What date format does lastmod need?: W3C Datetime — either YYYY-MM-DD or a full timestamp like 2026-09-20T14:30:00+00:00. US-style 09/20/2026 is rejected by the parser. Unlike changefreq, Google does use lastmod, but only if it trusts it: setting it to today across your whole site every night is how sites teach Google to ignore the field entirely.
What happens if I have more than 50,000 URLs?: A single sitemap is capped at 50,000 URLs or 50 MB uncompressed, whichever comes first. Paste more than that and this tool splits the list into sitemap-1.xml, sitemap-2.xml, and so on, then builds a sitemap index at sitemap.xml pointing at all of them. You upload every file and submit only the index.
Why does my sitemap fail to parse in Search Console?: Nine times out of ten it is an unescaped ampersand. A URL like /search?q=shoes&sort=price has to be written as /search?q=shoes&sort=price inside the loc element, or the XML is malformed and the whole file is rejected. This generator escapes &, <, >, quotes, and apostrophes automatically. The other common cause is a byte order mark or stray whitespace before the XML declaration.
Which URLs should I leave out?: Anything that is not the canonical, indexable version of a page: redirects, noindex pages, URLs blocked in robots.txt, paginated duplicates, and pages whose canonical tag points somewhere else. Search Console flags these as errors or warnings, and a sitemap full of them makes the report useless for spotting real problems. List only the pages you want in search results.
Does a sitemap help my rankings?: No. It helps discovery, which is a different thing. A sitemap tells crawlers which URLs exist, so new and deeply buried pages get found faster. It does not make any of them rank higher, and a small site with good internal linking often gets crawled fine without one. It becomes genuinely useful past a few hundred pages, or when pages are not linked from anywhere.

From the blog

XML Sitemaps: What Google Reads and What It Throws Away The two elements that still matter, the escaping bug that breaks half of hand-written sitemaps, and when a sitemap is a waste of time. Read the post →

XML Sitemap Generator — Build sitemap.xml Online Free

How it works

Your data stays private

Frequently asked questions

From the blog

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