How do I create a sitemap for my website?

Enter your website URL and click 'Start Crawling'. Our crawler automatically discovers up to 500 pages on your site (1,500 with a free account). Once complete, download your sitemap in XML, HTML, CSV, or JSON format.

Is this sitemap generator really free?

Yes! Our sitemap generator is 100% free. Without an account, crawl up to 500 URLs. With a free account, get 1,500 URLs per crawl (3X more!), save up to 5 crawls, and crawl up to 25,000 URLs/month. No credit card required.

How many URLs can I include in my sitemap?

Without an account, you can crawl up to 500 URLs per sitemap. With a free account, you can crawl up to 1,500 URLs per sitemap and up to 25,000 URLs per month total. This is plenty for most small to medium websites.

What's the difference between discovering and generating a sitemap?

Discovery finds existing sitemaps on any website (useful for competitor research or finding your own sitemap). Generation creates a new sitemap.xml file by automatically crawling your website and discovering all URLs.

Do I need to submit my sitemap to Google?

Yes, after generating your sitemap, you should submit it to Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools. This helps search engines discover and index your pages faster.

Is my data private and secure?

Yes. We only extract URL links from pages you crawl. We do NOT store full page content or personal data from crawled sites. For logged-in users, saved crawls are stored securely and only accessible to you. We use encryption for all data transmission.

Can you crawl JavaScript-based websites?

Yes! With a free account, you can enable JavaScript Rendering to crawl dynamic websites built with React, Vue, Angular, and other JavaScript frameworks. Our crawler uses a real browser to render pages, ensuring all dynamically-loaded content is discovered. Note that JS rendering is slower than standard crawling due to the additional processing required.

How to Find Your WordPress Sitemap

WordPress doesn't display your sitemap URL anywhere obvious in the admin dashboard, which leaves many site owners wondering if they even have one. The good news: if you're running WordPress 5.5 or later, your site automatically generates a basic XML sitemap. Finding it—and understanding your options—takes just a few minutes.

The Default WordPress Sitemap Location

Since WordPress 5.5 (released August 2020), core WordPress includes native sitemap functionality. Your sitemap lives at a predictable URL:

https://yourdomain.com/wp-sitemap.xml

Simply replace "yourdomain.com" with your actual domain and visit that URL in your browser. If you see an XML document listing your pages and posts, your native WordPress sitemap is active.

The native sitemap is actually a sitemap index file that references multiple child sitemaps organized by content type:

wp-sitemap-posts-post-1.xml — your blog posts
wp-sitemap-posts-page-1.xml — your static pages
wp-sitemap-taxonomies-category-1.xml — category archives
wp-sitemap-taxonomies-post_tag-1.xml — tag archives
wp-sitemap-users-1.xml — author archives

Each child sitemap contains up to 2,000 URLs. If you have more content than that, WordPress automatically creates additional numbered sitemaps (post-2.xml, post-3.xml, etc.).

Plugin-Generated Sitemaps

Most WordPress sites use an SEO plugin, and these plugins typically generate their own sitemaps with more features than the native version. The URL depends on which plugin you're using.

Yoast SEO

Yoast creates its sitemap at:

https://yourdomain.com/sitemap_index.xml

You can also find it by going to Yoast SEO → Settings → Site Features → APIs, then clicking "View the XML sitemap" under the XML sitemaps toggle.

Yoast's sitemap index references child sitemaps like post-sitemap.xml, page-sitemap.xml, and category-sitemap.xml. It also includes separate sitemaps for custom post types if your theme or plugins register any.

Rank Math

Rank Math places its sitemap at:

https://yourdomain.com/sitemap_index.xml

Find it in the dashboard under Rank Math → Sitemap Settings. The "Your Sitemap" link at the top of that page opens your sitemap index directly.

All in One SEO (AIOSEO)

AIOSEO uses the same conventional location:

https://yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml

Access sitemap settings through All in One SEO → Sitemaps. The "Open Sitemap" button takes you directly to your sitemap index.

SEOPress

SEOPress generates its sitemap at:

https://yourdomain.com/sitemaps.xml

Note the plural "sitemaps" rather than "sitemap." Configure it under SEOPress → XML / HTML Sitemap.

What If You Can't Find Your Sitemap?

If none of the standard URLs return a sitemap, a few things might be happening.

The Sitemap Is Disabled

SEO plugins let you toggle sitemap generation on or off. Check your plugin's sitemap settings to confirm it's enabled. For the native WordPress sitemap, a theme or plugin may have disabled it programmatically using the wp_sitemaps_enabled filter.

A Caching or Security Plugin Is Blocking It

Some security plugins block access to XML files by default. Caching plugins occasionally cause issues with dynamically generated sitemaps. Try clearing your cache or temporarily disabling security plugins to test.

Permalink Settings Need Refreshing

WordPress sitemaps rely on permalink rewrite rules. Go to Settings → Permalinks and click "Save Changes" without making any actual changes. This flushes the rewrite rules and often fixes sitemap 404 errors.

You're Using an Older WordPress Version

Sites running WordPress versions before 5.5 don't have native sitemaps. Either update WordPress (strongly recommended for security reasons) or install an SEO plugin to generate sitemaps.

Checking Your Robots.txt File

Once you've located your sitemap, verify it's referenced in your robots.txt file. Visit:

https://yourdomain.com/robots.txt

Look for a line like:

Sitemap: https://yourdomain.com/sitemap_index.xml

If it's missing, most SEO plugins add this automatically when you enable their sitemap feature. For the native WordPress sitemap, you may need to add the reference manually or use a plugin that modifies robots.txt.

Native vs. Plugin Sitemaps: Which Should You Use?

The native WordPress sitemap covers the basics—it lists your public content and updates automatically. For many small sites, it's sufficient.

SEO plugin sitemaps offer more control. You can exclude specific posts or pages, add image sitemaps, set custom priorities and change frequencies, and include or exclude specific post types and taxonomies. If you need to keep certain content out of your sitemap or want additional features like news sitemaps, use a plugin.

When both are active, you might have two sitemaps running simultaneously. This isn't harmful, but it's cleaner to disable one. Most SEO plugins automatically disable the native sitemap when their own sitemap is active. If yours doesn't, you can disable the native sitemap by adding this to your theme's functions.php file or a custom plugin:

Submitting Your Sitemap to Search Engines

After confirming your sitemap works, submit it to search engines through their webmaster tools:

Google Search Console: Go to Sitemaps in the left menu, enter your sitemap URL, and click Submit.
Bing Webmaster Tools: Navigate to Sitemaps under Configure My Site, then submit your URL.

Both platforms will show indexing status and flag any errors they encounter while processing your sitemap.