Sitemap XML Generator

A Sitemap is a Hint, Not a Guarantee of Indexing

A common question is, "I submitted a sitemap, but my pages aren't getting indexed." A sitemap is just a list that says "please look at these pages"; it doesn't guarantee crawling or indexing. If Search Console shows "Discovered - currently not indexed" or "Crawled - currently not indexed," the problem isn't your sitemap—it's page quality or duplicate content. Resubmitting the sitemap won't fix it.

That's not to say they're useless. In the following situations, they make a real difference:

• Orphaned pages not connected by internal links — without a link to follow, a sitemap is the only way for crawlers to discover them.
• A brand-new site — when you have few external links, a sitemap provides an early signal for crawlers to find you.
• Sites with thousands of pages or more — it helps crawlers manage their crawl budget.
• Frequently updated sites — an accurate `lastmod` tells crawlers to revisit what's changed first.

Why the Default for `priority` and `changefreq` is "Do not include"

Google effectively ignores these two values. The reason is simple: almost every site owner used to put `priority="1.0"` and `changefreq="always"` on their pages. Since such self-reported values can't be trusted, Google stopped looking at them. That's why this tool's default is "Do not include (Recommended)" and why a note appears if you select a value.

The only tag that's actually considered is `lastmod`, and only when it's accurate. If a deployment script updates the `lastmod` for every page to today's date every day, Google will start to ignore that site's `lastmod` values entirely. Once you lose that trust, the signal won't work even when you genuinely update an article.

Submission: Start with a Single Line in robots.txt

1. Upload the generated sitemap.xml to your site's root directory. Verify you can open it in your browser and see the XML.
2. Add the line `Sitemap: https://example.com/sitemap.xml` to your robots.txt file. This line alone allows any search engine to find it automatically.
3. Register the URL in Google Search Console's Sitemaps section. This lets you see processing results and errors.
4. Register the same URL in Naver Search Advisor under Request → Submit Sitemap. This is often overlooked but important for reaching Korean audiences.
5. After a few days, check the Sitemaps report in Search Console to see the number of URLs read and their indexing status.

Exceeding 50,000 URLs: Using a Sitemap Index

The standard limits are 50,000 URLs per file and 50MB uncompressed. If you exceed these, you must split the file and create a sitemap index that lists your sitemap files. You then submit only the index URL. This tool's "Sitemap Index" mode is for creating that file.

In practice, it's better to split files before you hit the limit. By separating files by content type—like posts, products, and categories—you can immediately see in Search Console which group has a low indexing rate. The real benefit isn't just seeing the site's overall indexing rate, but discovering that "only product pages are failing to be indexed."

<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-blog-1.xml</loc>
  </sitemap>
</sitemapindex>

<!-- Only include the index URL in robots.txt -->
<!-- Sitemap: https://example.com/sitemap_index.xml -->

Common Mistakes

• Mixing domains or protocols — A sitemap should only contain URLs from its own domain and with the same protocol. Mismatched entries will be completely ignored. This tool warns you if it detects a mix.
• URLs with non-ASCII characters — URLs with Korean characters like `/blog/사이트맵-만드는-법` are fine to include as-is, but if your server redirects to a percent-encoded version, it's safer to use the encoded URL. Whichever you use, it must be the one that actually returns a 200 OK status.
• URLs with `&` — The `&` in `?cat=tools&sort=new` must be written as `&` in XML. This tool escapes it automatically, so you can just paste the original URL. This is a common cause of XML parsing errors when creating sitemaps by hand.
• URL length over 2,048 characters — These entries will be ignored.