How to Create, Find and Check an XML Sitemap: Generators and Examples

What an XML sitemap is for

An XML sitemap is a file that lists the URLs on your site you want search engines to know about, optionally with the date each one last changed. It helps crawlers discover pages, especially new pages, pages with few internal links, and large sites where some sections are deep in the structure. It does not force anything into the index: Google still decides what to crawl and index, and a page in your sitemap can still be left out if it is thin, duplicated or blocked.

The format is defined by the sitemaps.org protocol, which Google, Bing and other engines all support. The limits that matter:

A sitemap should contain only canonical URLs that return 200 and that you want indexed. Redirects, 404s, noindexed pages and parameter duplicates do not belong in it, and a sitemap full of them makes the whole file less trustworthy as a signal.

A valid XML sitemap example

This is a complete, valid sitemap for a small site. You can copy it as a starting point and change the addresses:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
  <url>
    <loc>https://example.com/</loc>
    <lastmod>2026-10-01</lastmod>
  </url>
  <url>
    <loc>https://example.com/menu/cakes</loc>
    <lastmod>2026-09-14</lastmod>
  </url>
  <url>
    <loc>https://example.com/contact</loc>
  </url>
</urlset>

Each page sits in its own <url> element with a <loc>. The lastmod value uses the W3C date format, either a date or a full date and time with a time zone such as 2026-10-01T09:30:00+01:00.

A sitemap index for larger sites

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<sitemapindex xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
  <sitemap>
    <loc>https://example.com/sitemap-pages.xml</loc>
  </sitemap>
  <sitemap>
    <loc>https://example.com/sitemap-products.xml</loc>
  </sitemap>
</sitemapindex>

Submit the index and search engines read every child file listed in it. Splitting by type, such as pages, posts and products, also makes the Search Console report easier to read. See sitemap size limits if you are close to the caps.

How to find the XML sitemap on a site

There is no single required address, so check these in order:

1. robots.txt. Open https://example.com/robots.txt and look for a Sitemap: line. This is the most reliable clue, because it is where sites declare their sitemap.
2. Common addresses. Try /sitemap.xml, /sitemap_index.xml (Yoast and Rank Math), /wp-sitemap.xml (WordPress core) and /sitemap-index.xml.
3. Search Console. For your own site, the Sitemaps report lists every sitemap submitted for the property and when Google last read it.
4. Your platform. Shopify publishes /sitemap.xml automatically, and most CMS SEO plugins show the address on their settings screen.

From a terminal you can check the status and the type of file the server returns:

curl -sI https://example.com/sitemap.xml | grep -iE '^(HTTP|content-type)'
curl -s https://example.com/robots.txt | grep -i '^sitemap'

A healthy result is a 200 with a content type such as application/xml or text/xml. If you get an HTML page, the address is probably being caught by a 404 page or a redirect.

Ways to create an XML sitemap

WordPress

WordPress has produced a basic sitemap at /wp-sitemap.xml since version 5.5. Yoast and Rank Math replace it with their own index at /sitemap_index.xml and let you exclude post types and taxonomies. See sitemap_index.xml in WordPress.

Next.js

// app/sitemap.ts
import type { MetadataRoute } from 'next';

export default async function sitemap(): Promise<MetadataRoute.Sitemap> {
  const products = await getProducts();
  return [
    { url: 'https://example.com/', lastModified: new Date('2026-10-01') },
    ...products.map((p) => ({ url: `https://example.com/products/${p.slug}`, lastModified: p.updatedAt })),
  ];
}

Online generators

A generator crawls your site from the home page and writes the file for you to download and upload to the root. It only finds pages reachable through links, and the file does not update itself, so regenerate it whenever you add or remove pages. For any site that changes, a CMS or build-time sitemap is the better long-term option.

How to check an XML sitemap before submitting

Check three things: the file is valid XML, every URL in it is a live canonical page, and the server delivers it correctly. Validate the syntax with xmllint, which is available on most Linux and macOS systems:

curl -s https://example.com/sitemap.xml -o sitemap.xml
xmllint --noout sitemap.xml && echo "well formed"

# list every URL and its status code
grep -o '<loc>[^<]*' sitemap.xml | sed 's/<loc>//' | while read u; do
  printf '%s %s\n' "$(curl -s -o /dev/null -w '%{http_code}' "$u")" "$u"
done | sort | uniq -c -w3

Every line should start with 200. Anything showing 301, 404 or 5xx needs removing or fixing. Then open a sample of pages and confirm the canonical tag points at the same URL that is listed. The sitemap 404s guide and sitemap mismatches guide cover the usual problems.

A worked example

Example Bakery submits /sitemap_index.xml from its SEO plugin and Search Console shows Success, but only 40 of 120 listed URLs are indexed. Running the status loop shows 30 URLs returning 301, because the plugin lists old http addresses from an imported product feed, and 25 tag archive pages that carry noindex. The bakery fixes the feed so products use https URLs, excludes tag archives in the plugin's sitemap settings and resubmits. The listed count drops to 65, all returning 200 and self-canonical, which gives Google a clean list to work through.

The fix, step by step

Edge cases worth knowing

• Couldn't fetch in Search Console. This status can mean the file was blocked, returned an error, or simply has not been fetched yet. Test the address with curl first; the sitemap could not be read guide covers the rest.
• Image, video and news extensions. Google supports extra namespaces for images, videos and news articles inside a sitemap. Most small sites do not need them, because Google finds images in the page itself, but they can help media-heavy sites.
• hreflang in sitemaps. Language alternates can be declared in the sitemap with xhtml:link elements instead of in each page. See hreflang in sitemaps.
• Compressed sitemaps. A gzipped file such as sitemap.xml.gz is allowed; the 50 MB limit applies to the uncompressed size.
• Cross-host URLs. A sitemap normally lists URLs on its own host only. Listing another domain's pages needs proof of ownership of both, through Search Console or robots.txt.
• Fake lastmod dates. Setting every lastmod to today on each build teaches Google to ignore the field. See sitemap lastmod.

Keeping the sitemap accurate

Prefer a sitemap that is generated from your content, so it changes when pages are added or removed. Declare it in robots.txt as covered in creating a robots.txt file, keep it submitted in Search Console, and glance at the Sitemaps and Pages reports monthly. After a migration or redesign, rerun the status check, because old URLs often linger in the file.