Top free online XML sitemap generator tools

Update – article updated to remove a service provider that no longer exists.

We have all heard about the term Sitemap weather or not we have to directly deal with it. It could be a little daunting to work with all the different files and their formats for those people who are not very technical. Be it website pages and their format such as HTML/HTML5, PHP’s or scripts such as Javascripts, Jquery’s, or images and their formats such JPG, PNG’s; there is already a huge list of those items that writers have to struggle with. Adding another format – XML to this list does definitely not sounds sweet.

Thankfully, with different plugins and tools, a lot of these files are automatically generated. Similarly, in the case of Sitemaps, there are a number of free online XML sitemap generator tools and plugins available. For clarity we would try to understand what are sitemaps, why are sitemaps important and list a few sitemap generator tools.

What is a Sitemap?

Sitemap, as the name suggests, is a textual map of a website. It is a list of links of all the webpages that exist on a website. Site is to a search engine what Table to Content is to a human book reader. Along with the links of the pages, a Sitemap may also contains information about the age and how frequently the webpage gets updated.

All this makes the job of a search engine easier. Thus, it won’t be prudent to assume that search engines would give extra brownie points to those sites which have updated and well constructed Sitemaps.

List of websites that provide XML Sitemap Generator tool

Below is the list of some Sitemap generator tools that are

• available as an online tool
• generate Sitemap in XML format for free
• do not ask for your email address
• do not require an account to be created with them

SEO Chat

A great website with some very helpful tools for bloggers. Although its sitemap generator tool might look a bit intimidating to a layman but you have to really just enter the URL and hit Enter.

Script Socket

Another simple yet elegant tool.

XML Sitemaps

The main difference here is the absence of excessive advertisements that plague those pages listed above.

Web Site Map

It does not confuse you with priorities or frequencies of the post/pages. It simply generates and prompts for download to start.

 

We would recommend that you submit your Sitemap to search engines other than Google. These would be Bing, Yahoo! and Alexa.

In case you face issues with any of the Sitemap generator tools listed above, please feel free to write about it in the comments and I will try to figure out a resolution for you.

I would be talking about different parameters attached with entries in a Sitemap and how to submit Sitemaps to different search engines in the upcoming posts. In case you have specific points to be covered or queries to be addressed, please let me know so that I could cover them in the post.