Ensure more pages are indexed and crawled with these top 10 sitemap generators, suitable for every budget.
Sitemaps are essential tools for SEO professionals and webmasters, guiding search engines like Google through a website to discover new pages and content. Although search engines may not index all content, indicating which pages are important can significantly impact your site’s visibility.
Benefits of Sitemaps:
- Provide an overview of your website’s structure.
- Show which pages are crawled by search engines.
- Indicate how frequently pages are crawled.
- Identify pages not being indexed.
- Highlight pages with errors that need fixing.
Dynamic vs. Static Sitemaps:
For small sites with fewer pages, manual sitemap management is feasible. However, medium to large sites with frequent content updates benefit from dynamic sitemaps, which automatically add new pages and are more efficient than static files.
Choosing a Sitemap Generator:
With many tools available, selecting the best sitemap generator depends on your website’s needs and budget. Here are ten top choices:
1. Google Sitemap Generator
This plugin for WordPress creates a sitemap for your website that will be compatible with all Google requirements.
- Platform: WordPress plugin.
- Features: Creates sitemaps compatible with Google’s requirements, supports various translations.
- Price: Free.
2. Screaming Frog
One of the most popular crawlers in the SEO community, Screaming Frog can be used to create sitemaps for any size website.
- Platform: Standalone software.
- Features: Advanced XML sitemap generation, ideal for larger websites, supports list crawl sitemaps.
- Price: Free for up to 500 URLs; paid version is €149 annually.
3. XML-Sitemaps.com
This sitemap generator tool allows you to create sitemaps for your website quickly and easily.
- Platform: Online tool.
- Features: Supports multiple languages, includes/excludes specific pages, free for up to 500 URLs.
- Price: Free for up to 500 URLs; Pro model at $3.49 per month for larger sitemaps.
4. Yoast SEO Sitemap Plugin
A popular WordPress plugin that helps you optimize your website for search engines, Yoast SEO also includes a sitemap generator tool that can help you easily create sitemaps for your website.
- Platform: WordPress plugin.
- Features: Generates sitemaps with sensible defaults, splits larger sitemaps into smaller ones.
- Price: Free.
5. Inspyder
This website software company offers an XML sitemap generator that is super easy to use and can handle complex sites.
- Platform: PC software.
- Features: Handles complex sites, schedules sitemap generation, supports multiple formats.
- Price: Free trial; $39.95 annually.
6. Slickplan
A website planning company, Slickplan offers a sitemap generator that is easy to use and offers a WordPress plugin.
- Platform: Web-based.
- Features: Visual sitemap builder, drag-and-drop, batch editing, imports from existing sitemaps.
- Price: Starts at $10.79 per month, up to $100.39 per month.
7. Dynomapper
This generator gives you a good solution for realizing and displaying the true architecture of a website with interactive visual sitemaps.
Dynomapper’s sitemap is capable of crawling 200K pages per crawl. The sitemap editor enables users to rework the hierarchy, categorize pages, and assign a workflow status to each page.
- Platform: Web-based.
- Features: Interactive visual sitemaps, supports up to 200K pages per crawl.
- Price: Included in packages starting at $49.95 per month.
8. Sitemap Writer Pro
This is a terrific tool for creating sitemaps fast, and for managing large sites that have millions of URLs.
Sitemap Writer Pro offers eight types of sitemaps to properly index your website: Standard Sitemap, Google Image, Google News, Google Video, Google Images, Google Code Search, Google Geo, and Google Mobile.
- Platform: PC software.
- Features: Creates eight types of sitemaps, ideal for large sites.
- Price: $24.95.
9. WriteMaps
This is another visual sitemap builder that you can use to create a sitemap without investing time in formatting.
One of the great features of WriteMaps is that you can export your visual content into a PDF or share it with a unique URL.
- Platform: Web-based.
- Features: Visual sitemap builder, exportable content, flexible plans.
- Price: Free for three sitemaps (up to 50 URLs); plans up to $29.99 per month.
10. Octopus.do
Eating super-fast visual sitemaps is what Octopus.do does best.
You can generate sitemap XML from visual sitemaps and submit it to Google, Bing, and other search engines to improve your visibility and SEO.
Octopus.do offers an interactive flow, taking full advantage of drag and drop.
You can also export your sitemap to various formats including PDF, PNG, TXT, and XML.
- Platform: Web-based.
- Features: Visual sitemaps, exportable to multiple formats, interactive flow.
- Price: Free for one project; plans up to $120 per month.
Sitemap Tips:
- Create multiple sitemaps for different site sections to identify indexing issues.
- Keep sitemaps within the 50MB and 50,000 URL limits; use a sitemap index file for larger sites.
- Google does not prioritize URLs based on sitemap priority tags.
- Place sitemaps at the root, include them in robots.txt, and submit via Google Search Console.
- Monitor for errors and ensure successful submission and reading by Google.
These sitemap generators cater to various needs and budgets, ensuring your website is efficiently crawled and indexed.
More resources:
- 5 Sitemap Examples That Showcase Best Practices In Action
- 8 Common Robots.txt Issues And How To Fix Them
