Configure a sitemap in the Content Editor

Marketers, strategists, and content authors use industry standard SEO tools to ensure that their content is discoverable and included in search engine indexes. To enable this, a sitemap is required for each site.

A sitemap helps search engine crawlers navigate your site and improve search engine optimization (SEO). By default, the sitemap is generated for the whole site and stored in an XML file. An XML sitemap is created specifically for search engines to show details of the available pages in a website, their relative importance, and the frequency of content updates. In the sitemap, each page is represented by a URL element.

To ensure that a sitemap link is generated properly for each of your sites, you must configure the target hostname for the site host. This field specifies the base URL that will be used in the sitemap entries, such as www.example.com.

This topic describes how to configure the sitemap of a site using the Content Editor. You can also configure the sitemap using the Sites UI instead.

Configure the hostname

To ensure that the sitemap link is generated properly, you must configure the target hostname and scheme on the site host item.

Note

By default, the sitemap uses the Host Name defined in the Basic section in the site host item of your site (<site collection>/<site>/Settings/Site Grouping/Site). If both the Host Name and the TargetHostName fields are empty, the sitemap returns a 404 error.

To configure the hostname for your sitemap:

In the Content Editor, in the content tree, navigate to the site you want to configure, and find the <site collection>/<site>/Settings/Site Grouping/Site item.
Update the HostName and TargetHostName fields with the correct domains for your sitemap.
Publish the item.

Configure the sitemap

When an item is published on a site, XM Cloud generates the Sitemap media item. This process can occur no sooner than a defined period of time (the refresh threshold) after completion of the previous sitemap generation job. The generated media item contains the Sitemap.xml file that is served to Experience Edge.

To configure the sitemap for your site:

In the Content Editor, navigate to <site>/Settings/Sitemap.
Fill in the following fields:
- Refresh threshold - how much time must pass after a sitemap is generated on publish before it can be generated again. Measured in minutes.
- Cache expiration - a time, in minutes, after which the current cache expires. Set this to match the refresh threshold value.
- Maximum number of pages per sitemap - if specified, this determines the maximum number of pages in a sitemap.
- Generate sitemap media items - this must be enabled to allow XM Cloud to work properly with Experience Edge.

The following table gives a full description of all the parameters available for sitemap configuration.

Tab	Field	Description
Alternate links	Generate alternate links	Select to add `xhtml:link` elements to the `URL` elements in the sitemap. `xhtml:link` is used for alternate links, for example to link to other language versions of the same page. For example: RequestResponse `<url> <loc>https://sxa</loc> <lastmod>2021-10-28</lastmod> <changefreq>daily</changefreq> <priority>0.5</priority> <xhtml:link rel="alternate" hreflang="x-default" href="https://sxa" /> <xhtml:link rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href="https://sxa/en" /> <xhtml:link rel="alternate" hreflang="da" href="https://sxa/da" /> </url>`
	Include x-default	Select to add the `xhtml:link` element with `hreflang` set to `x-default` to the `url` element. The `x-default` value signals to the search algorithm that the page does not target any specific language or region. Example: RequestResponse `<xhtml:link rel="alternate" hreflang="x-default" href="https://sxa" />`
	hreflang	Specify language and region options for the `hreflang` attribute: with language and region - URLs are rendered both for region-dependent and independent codes. For example: RequestResponse `<xhtml:link rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href="https://sxa/en" /> <xhtml:link rel="alternate" hreflang="en-US" href="https://sxa/en-US" /> <xhtml:link rel="alternate" hreflang="en-CA" href="https://sxa/en-CA" />` with region only - URLs are rendered only for region dependent codes. Example: RequestResponse `<xhtml:link rel="alternate" hreflang="en-US" href="https://sxa/en-US" /> <xhtml:link rel="alternate" hreflang="en-CA" href="https://sxa/en-CA" />` with language only - URLs are rendered only for region independent codes. Example: RequestResponse `<xhtml:link rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href="https://sxa/en" /> <xhtml:link rel="alternate" hreflang="da" href="https://sxa/da" />`
Urlset attributes	lastmod	Select to render the `lastmod` attribute that belongs to the `url` element. Specifies the date when the page was last modified.
	changefreq	Select to render the `changefreq` attribute that belongs to the `url` element. Specifies how often the page content is changed.
	priority	Select to render the `priority` attribute that belongs to the `url` element. Specifies a number between 0 and 1 that represents the importance of a specific page.
URL options	Link provider name	Specify a custom link provider. It is added to the `providers` node under the `linkManager` node in the `Sitecore.config file`. If you leave it blank, the default link provider of the site is used.
Content crawling	Crawler	Specify the name of the item crawler that fetches items from your site. The default value is itemCrawler. You can define multiple item crawlers in the `sitemapItemCrawler` element. Example: RequestResponse `<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> <configuration xmlns:patch="http://www.sitecore.net/xmlconfig/"> <sitecore> <experienceAccelerator> <siteMetadata> <sitemapItemCrawler> <add name="itemCrawler" type="Sitecore.XA.Foundation.SiteMetadata.Sitemap.ItemCrawler, Sitecore.XA.Foundation.SiteMetadata" /> </sitemapItemCrawler> </siteMetadata> </experienceAccelerator> </sitecore> </configuration>`
Cache	Refresh threshold	Specify in minutes the minimum time slot between rebuild operations. The sitemap is rebuilt on publish. For example, if the refresh threshold is greater than 0, then the next rebuild operation does not occur earlier than the time of the most recent rebuild operation plus the time you have specified. The purpose of this field is to prevent excessive sitemap rebuild jobs when there are many publishing operations.
	Cache Type	Choose how the sitemap is stored: Inactive - turns the sitemap off. Stored in cache - stores the sitemap in the cache. Select this option if your site is hosted on an environment such as Azure and you cannot easily store files on a drive, or if your site changes often, requiring you to regenerate the the sitemap almost every time it is requested. Stored in file - stores the sitemap in a file. Select this option if you have a large site that does not change often. This option is turned on by default.
	Cache Type	Cache Expiration - Specify in minutes the lifetime of the sitemap in the `HttpRuntime.Cache` property.
Sitemap index	Maximum number of pages per sitemap	Specify the number of pages to be included in a sitemap. If the number of pages on the site exceeds the limit, then the `URL` entries are divided into multiple sitemaps, and a sitemap index is generated that links to these sitemaps. Note If you leave the field empty, all `URL` entries are rendered into a single sitemap.
Media items	Generate sitemap media items	Select to generate media items where the sitemaps are stored when the site is published. Storing sitemaps in media items is required to deliver the sitemap files to the rendering host through the Experience Edge service. Enabled by default. Note This field is only applicable to headless sites.

Exclude an item from the sitemap

By default, pages that are excluded from publication by site publication restrictions or approval workflows are not included in the sitemap. However, you might want to exclude other pages from the sitemap that have been approved and published, such as the error 404 page.

To exclude an item from the sitemap using the Content Editor:

In the Content Editor, in the content tree, click the content item that you want to exclude from the sitemap. For example, the homepage located at <site collection>/<site>/Home.
Under the Sitemap settings section for the item, configure the Change frequency field to Do not include.
Click Save.
Click Publish to publish the item.

The next time your sitemap is generated and the cache expires, you can confirm that the item has been excluded.

Note

To check that the item has been excluded from the sitemap without having to wait for the refresh threshold and the site cache expiration, go to the Sitemap configuration item <site collection>/<site>/Settings/Sitemap and set both the Refresh threshold and the Cache expiration to 0.

Remember to update these values back to the previous value once you complete testing.

Locate a site's sitemap

When configuring the sitemap in the Content Editor, if you've enabled the Generate sitemap media items setting, the generated sitemap will be stored in the Media Library.

Note

When configuring the sitemap using the Sites UI, the Generate sitemap media items setting is enabled by default.

You can locate a sitemap by doing any of the following:

On the <site collection>/<site> item, the Sitemap media items field displays the sitemaps associated with the selected site. With raw values turned on, you can see the sitemap's ID, which you can then search for in the content tree.
In the Media Library, you can find a list of sitemaps for a specific site in the following folder: Project<site>/<site>/Sitemaps/<site> .

Use the following query to retrieve the sitemap for a site from Experience Edge:

RequestResponse

query SitemapQuery($siteName: String!) {
  site {
    siteInfo(site: $siteName) {
      sitemap
    }
  }
}

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