Question 1

What is a sitemap XML file?

Accepted Answer

A sitemap XML file is a structured list of URLs on a website that helps search engines like Google discover and crawl pages more efficiently. It can also contain metadata such as when a page was last modified, how often it changes, and its relative priority.

Question 2

What is the difference between a sitemap and a sitemap index?

Accepted Answer

A regular sitemap lists individual page URLs using urlset and url elements. A sitemap index file lists the locations of multiple sitemaps using sitemapindex and sitemap elements, allowing large sites to split URLs across many files. This tool handles both formats automatically.

Question 3

What do Last Modified, Change Frequency, and Priority mean?

Accepted Answer

Last Modified (lastmod) indicates when a page was last updated. Change Frequency (changefreq) is a hint to crawlers about how often the page changes. Priority (priority) is a value from 0.0 to 1.0 indicating the importance of a page relative to other pages on the site. All three fields are optional.

Question 4

Is my sitemap data sent to any server?

Accepted Answer

No. All parsing is done entirely in your browser using the built-in DOMParser API. Your sitemap content never leaves your device, which makes this tool safe to use with private or pre-production sitemaps.

Question 5

How do I export the extracted URLs?

Accepted Answer

After parsing, you can click Copy All URLs to copy the list to your clipboard, Download CSV to get a spreadsheet-compatible file with all columns, or Download TXT to get a plain list of URLs one per line.

Sitemap URL Extractor

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