Generate an XML sitemap
Crawl options, JavaScript sites and how pricing per URL works.
In shortThe Sitemap generator crawls your site, including JavaScript-built pages, and writes an XML sitemap you can download and upload. Open Content → Schema and AI files → Sitemap generator, enter your URL, pick the settings and click Generate. You pay per URLs found, charged as the crawl runs, and it stops adding URLs when your credits run out. Each sitemap currently holds up to 50 URLs, so it suits small sites.
What an XML sitemap is for
An XML sitemap is a file, usually at yoursite.com/sitemap.xml, that lists the pages you want search engines to find. It helps crawlers discover pages they might miss, such as new pages or pages with few internal links. Search engines that feed AI answers find your pages the same way, so a clean sitemap helps both.
Many platforms already make one for you: WordPress, Shopify, Wix, Squarespace and most SEO plugins do. If yours exists and updates itself, keep using it. This generator is for sites that have none, often hand-built or JavaScript sites.
Before you start
- Check whether
yoursite.com/sitemap.xmlalready exists. - Check your robots.txt. The crawler respects it, so pages you've blocked there won't be found.
- Make sure you have credits. The Generate button stays disabled at a zero balance.
Generate a sitemap
- Open the generatorGo to Content → Schema and AI files → Sitemap generator. The page has Generator and History buttons at the top and a note about JavaScript rendering.
- Enter your URLType your homepage into the Website URL box. Under it you'll see the cost per URLs and your balance.
- Choose the settingsIn Sitemap Settings, pick a Change Frequency and a Priority, and tick Include last modified date if you want
lastmoddates. These values are applied to every URL in the file. - Generate and watch the progressClick Generate. The progress card shows each step (checking robots.txt, crawling, generating), the URLs found so far, the page being crawled, and an estimated cost against your balance. The crawler follows links up to three levels deep. If it finds very few pages, it switches to rendering JavaScript in a real browser to find pages built by React, Vue, Angular or Next.js.
- Download and publishWhen it's done, Crawl Statistics shows URLs discovered, URLs in the sitemap and crawl time, and Generated Sitemap shows the XML. Click Download XML or Copy. Upload the file to your site's root, add a
Sitemap: https://yoursite.com/sitemap.xmlline to robots.txt, and submit it in Google Search Console.
How pricing per URL works
You pay in steps of URLs found, and the credits come off your balance during the crawl, not at the end. Before the crawl starts, the generator works out how many URLs your balance can pay for. If your credits run out mid-crawl, it says the limit was reached and stops adding URLs, so you never go below zero.
Each sitemap currently includes at most 50 URLs on every plan, whatever the page's "Free Tier Limit" wording suggests. The crawler can find more than 50, and the charge follows the URLs it finds. On a large site you can pay for more URLs than end up in the file. If the crawl passes 50, a Heads up! box suggests recharging; recharging doesn't raise the 50-URL limit today. For sites with more than about 50 pages, use your CMS's sitemap or a dedicated crawler.
The History button opens an empty list today: past sitemaps aren't loaded back into the page. Download or copy the XML as soon as the crawl finishes, because running it again charges again.
How to read the XML
| Tag | What it holds | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|
<loc> | The page URL | The only required tag; check every URL is the canonical version you want indexed |
<lastmod> | Last modified date | Useful only if accurate; Google uses it when it trusts it |
<changefreq> | How often the page changes | Google has said it ignores this tag |
<priority> | Relative importance, 0.0 to 1.0 | Google has said it ignores this tag too |
Scan the URLs in the XML. Remove thank-you pages, test pages, duplicates with tracking parameters, or anything that redirects. A sitemap should list only pages you want in search results.
Check yourself
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Put the lesson to work
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