Creating & Managing

How to create, update, and maintain sitemaps for different use cases.

Creating a sitemap is just the start — you also need to keep it updated as your site grows. These articles cover how to create sitemaps for different content types (video, images, news, mobile, hreflang), generate them dynamically, and manage sitemaps for e-commerce sites.

For a comprehensive overview, see our Complete XML Sitemap Guide.

How to Create a Sitemap

Four practical methods to create a sitemap for your website: CMS plugins, generator tools, hand-coded XML, and programmatic generation. Step-by-step instructions for each approach.

How to Create an XML Sitemap

A hands-on tutorial for creating an XML sitemap from scratch: the required elements, optional tags, encoding rules, sitemap index files, validation, and a complete working example.

How to Update Your Sitemap

When and how to update your XML sitemap: triggers for updates, manual vs automatic approaches, CMS-specific guidance, re-submitting to Google, and lastmod best practices.

Dynamic Sitemaps: Auto-Generate Your Sitemap

Build sitemaps that generate automatically from your database. Covers Next.js, Rails, Django, Laravel, custom scripts, caching strategies, and performance.

Next.js Sitemap Guide: Static and Dynamic Generation

How to generate sitemaps in Next.js using the built-in App Router support and the next-sitemap package. Covers static generation, dynamic routes, ISR, sitemap indexes, and hreflang.

Video and Image Sitemaps

How video and image sitemaps work, when to use them, required and optional tags, complete XML examples, and how they help with Google rich results.

Hreflang in Sitemaps: International SEO Guide

Implement hreflang in XML sitemaps for international SEO. Covers syntax, xhtml:link elements, x-default, common mistakes, and complete working examples.

Sitemap Strategy for E-Commerce Sites

Why e-commerce sites need a deliberate sitemap strategy. Covers product pages, category URLs, faceted navigation, out-of-stock handling, sitemap indexes, and lastmod accuracy.