Create search-engine ready sitemaps for Google & Bing. Fast, free, and with no hidden costs - everything runs right in your browser.
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A two-minute primer before you generate yours
A sitemap XML (usually a file named sitemap.xml) is a structured list of the pages on your website, written in a standard format that search engines can read. It doesn't replace your pages - it tells a crawler exactly what exists, where to find it, and which entries have changed recently.
Search engines like Google and Bing discover most content by following links, but that process can miss pages that are new, deeply buried, or poorly linked. A sitemap closes those gaps. It's especially useful for large sites, brand-new sites with few backlinks, sites with rich archives, and sites whose content changes often.
The format is defined by the open sitemaps.org protocol: one <urlset> element containing a <url> entry for every page. A single file may hold up to 50,000 URLs and weigh up to 50 MB uncompressed; bigger sites split their URLs across several files joined by a sitemap index.
Having a sitemap doesn't guarantee that every listed page gets indexed or ranks higher - it's a set of hints, not commands. What it does is make crawling more efficient, help new and updated content get discovered sooner, and give you a clean inventory of your own site. Once yours is generated, upload it to your site's root folder, reference it from robots.txt, and submit it in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.
This tool doubles as a Google sitemap creator: the sitemap.xml it produces is exactly what Google Search Console expects. Here's how to submit your sitemap to Google, what the correct Google sitemap URL looks like, and how to fix the most common Search Console sitemap errors.
https://your-site.com/sitemap.xml - that address is your Google sitemap URL.sitemap.xml - under "Add a new sitemap" and press Submit.Tip: also add the line Sitemap: https://your-site.com/sitemap.xml to your robots.txt (use the copy button above) - Google and Bing both read it automatically, even before you submit.
| Status / error | What it means & how to fix it |
|---|---|
| Sitemap could not be read | Google fetched the file but couldn't parse it. Usually caused by invalid XML, a stray character before the <?xml declaration, or an HTML error page saved as sitemap.xml. Regenerate the file with this tool (the output is spec-valid UTF-8) and re-upload it. |
| Couldn't fetch / not detected | If your sitemap is not detected by Google, the URL usually 404s or redirects. Confirm the file opens in your own browser at the exact address you submitted, check upper/lowercase in the path, make sure robots.txt isn't blocking it, and give a brand-new submission up to a few days - "Couldn't fetch" sometimes shows temporarily before the first crawl. |
| Has errors / invalid URLs | Some entries point to redirects, 404s, or pages on a different domain or protocol than the property. Every <loc> should be a final, working URL on the same host - https throughout, one canonical version per page (no www/non-www mix). |
| Success, but pages not indexed | This isn't an error. A sitemap gets pages discovered, not guaranteed indexed - Google still evaluates quality, duplicates, and noindex tags. Check individual pages with the URL Inspection tool to see why any specific one was left out. |
Running WordPress? You have three ways to create a sitemap in WordPress: the built-in core sitemap, an SEO plugin like Yoast or Rank Math, or a standalone generator like the tool above. Here's how each works, where your WordPress sitemap URL lives, and how to fix a WordPress sitemap that's broken.
Built-in (no plugin needed). Since WordPress 5.5, every site ships with a basic XML sitemap enabled by default at /wp-sitemap.xml. There's nothing to enable in Settings - if you can open that URL on your site, your WordPress sitemap is already live. It covers posts, pages, and taxonomies, but offers little control over what's included.
With an SEO plugin. Installing a free WordPress sitemap plugin like Yoast SEO or Rank Math replaces the core file with a smarter sitemap index: automatic updates on every publish, per-post-type control, and lastmod dates. In Yoast, enable it under SEO → Settings → Site features → XML sitemaps; in Rank Math, under Rank Math → Sitemap Settings.
With this generator. For a hand-curated sitemap - a landing-page subset, a headless or hybrid setup, or when you can't install plugins - paste your page URLs into the tool above, download sitemap.xml, and upload it to your site root via your host's file manager or FTP.
| Option | Sitemap URL | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| WordPress core | /wp-sitemap.xml | Free, zero setup. Posts, pages, taxonomies. No image, video, or news sitemaps and minimal control. |
| Yoast SEO | /sitemap_index.xml | Free tier includes the Yoast XML sitemap index with per-type control; image data is included within page entries. News sitemap requires the paid News add-on. |
| Rank Math | /sitemap_index.xml | Free Rank Math sitemap with image sitemap support and a WooCommerce sitemap for product pages; news and video sitemaps in the Pro version. |
| This tool | /sitemap.xml | Full manual control over every URL, priority, and date. Works with any WordPress setup - no plugin installed at all. |
WooCommerce sitemapImage sitemapVideo sitemapNews sitemap
Specialized sitemap types (images, video, news, WooCommerce products) are best generated by a plugin, since they need data pulled from your media library and product catalog automatically. Plugin capabilities change between versions - check each plugin's current documentation for exact feature tiers.
If your WordPress sitemap URL returns a 404, first flush your permalinks: go to Settings → Permalinks and click Save (no changes needed) - this rebuilds the rewrite rules that serve the sitemap. If it still fails, check for two plugins generating sitemaps at once (e.g. Yoast and Rank Math together, or an SEO plugin plus a dedicated sitemap plugin): keep one and disable the other, since conflicts commonly break both outputs. Caching and security plugins can also serve stale or blocked copies - exclude the sitemap path from caching and any firewall rules.
If a plugin sitemap shows errors in Google Search Console, resubmit the correct URL for your setup (/sitemap_index.xml for Yoast and Rank Math, /wp-sitemap.xml for core), and remove old submissions that now redirect. As a stopgap while you debug, you can always generate a clean static sitemap.xml with the tool above and upload it to your site root - it works regardless of what your plugins are doing, just remember to regenerate it when you publish new pages, since a static file doesn't update itself.