By Mehdi HassanWhat is an XML sitemap?
An XML sitemap is a machine-readable list of the pages on your site that matter. Each entry has a URL and, optionally, a last-modified date. Search engines read it to discover pages they might otherwise miss and to notice when existing pages change.
It's different from an HTML sitemap, which is a page of links for people. The XML version is for crawlers only. It's one of the technical basics in our SEO and AEO glossary, next to robots.txt, which usually points crawlers to it. Our guide to XML sitemaps and robots.txt for startups covers setting up both.
How do Webflow, Framer, WordPress and Next.js create sitemaps?
Most modern platforms generate an XML sitemap automatically, so the real work is checking what goes into it rather than writing it. The table shows the default behavior on the platforms we build with.
Platform | How the sitemap is made | What to check |
|---|---|---|
Webflow | Auto-generated in SEO settings, including CMS items | Exclude utility and draft pages from indexing |
Framer | Generated automatically on publish | Pages set to hide from search stay out |
WordPress | Core sitemap built in; SEO plugins often replace it | Only one sitemap source is active |
Next.js | A sitemap file in the app directory generates it at build or request time | CMS pages are fetched and included |
Custom or headless | Generated by your code or CMS | It updates when content is published |
On a Next.js build, we generate the sitemap from the same CMS data that renders the pages, so a published post appears in both at once. The Next.js metadata docs cover the file convention.
What should an XML sitemap include?
An XML sitemap should include every page you want in search results, and nothing else. Every URL in it should return a 200 status, be the canonical version and be allowed by robots.txt.
- Include: product, feature, pricing, use-case, comparison, blog and glossary pages, each at its final canonical URL.
- Exclude: redirected URLs, 404s, noindexed pages, thank-you pages, internal search results and staging URLs.
- Last-modified dates: only if they're accurate. Google uses lastmod when it can trust it and ignores the priority and changefreq fields.
Does a small site need an XML sitemap?
A small, well-linked site can be crawled without a sitemap, but it costs nothing to have one and it helps when the site is new or pages are added often.
Hypothetical example: a B2B startup's first sitemap check
For example, suppose a seed-stage SaaS startup launches a 12-page site on Webflow plus a blog. Its auto-generated sitemap includes a style guide page, a password-protected investor page and two template pages left over from the build.
The team sets those to noindex, which removes them from the sitemap, submits the sitemap in Search Console and checks the pages report a week later. Its real pages are discovered, and the junk never competes with them.
Sitemaps help discovery, but they don't fix weak pages or JavaScript-only content. If pages still aren't showing up, the cause is often rendering, covered in React SPA to SEO-friendly website. And when you move platforms, regenerate the sitemap as part of the migration, as we cover in Framer to Next.js migration cost.
