Drupal Sitemap Generator

Our Drupal Sitemap Generator crawls your live frontend to accurately map your nodes, taxonomy terms, and views. It acts as the perfect alternative or verification tool for Drupal's Simple XML Sitemap module.

How to Use This Tool

Enter Drupal URL

Input the homepage URL of your Drupal website URL.

Analyze Site

Click generate to let our crawler map your Drupal architecture, including posts, pages, and products.

Review URLs

Check the discovered URLs. We exclude default Drupal system pages and non-indexable routes.

Choose Output

Select either a standard 'Single Sitemap' or 'Sitemap Index' format.

Copy or Download

Save the generated XML file directly to your device.

Recommended Action

Upload the sitemap to your root directory (if allowed by Drupal) and submit it via Google Search Console.

Check Drupal Sitemap

How Drupal Handles Sitemaps

Drupal Core does not generate an XML sitemap natively. The vast majority of Drupal sites rely on the contributed Simple XML Sitemap module (or the older XMLSitemap module) to handle generation.

When configured correctly, this module generates a sitemap at /sitemap.xml based on entity types (Nodes, Taxonomy terms, Users) and can be set to update during cron runs or when entities are saved.

What BuildSitemap Checks

Because Drupal sites are highly customized, module-generated sitemaps often miss URLs generated by complex Views or custom routing.

BuildSitemap crawls your site exactly like Googlebot. We follow the actual links rendered on your frontend, ensuring that URLs generated by Views, Panels, or decoupled frontends are accurately captured and verified for 200 OK status codes.

URLs We Discover

Node pages (Articles, Basic Pages, Custom Content Types)
Taxonomy term pages (Categories, Tags)
URLs generated by Drupal Views
Decoupled frontend routes

URLs to Exclude

User profile pages (unless specifically public for a directory site)
System paths like /user/login, /admin/*
Filtered Views with multiple query parameters
Unpublished nodes (which return 403 or 404)

Drupal Sitemap Structure

Drupal sites can get massive. Generating a Structured Sitemap allows you to split your URLs into logical buckets.

For a typical Drupal architecture, you want to separate your primary content types (e.g., Articles) from your taxonomy terms to monitor indexation closely in Google Search Console.

Common Drupal Problems

The Simple XML Sitemap module requires manual configuration for every new content type and taxonomy vocabulary. Forgetting to enable a new bundle means it won't appear in the sitemap.

Drupal Views that don't have explicit menu links often get missed by sitemap modules.

Failing to configure URL aliases (Pathauto) properly, resulting in messy `/node/123` URLs being indexed instead of clean paths.

How to Use Your Generated Sitemap

If your Drupal sitemap module is misconfigured, broken by an update, or you are running a decoupled Drupal architecture (e.g., Next.js frontend):

Generate your sitemap using BuildSitemap.
Download the `.xml` file.
Host it on your frontend server or upload it via SFTP to your Drupal web root.
Submit the direct URL to Google Search Console.

Example Drupal Output

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
  <url>
    <loc>https://drupal.example.com/articles/optimizing-drupal-seo</loc>
    <lastmod>2026-09-21</lastmod>
    <priority>1.0</priority>
  </url>
  <url>
    <loc>https://drupal.example.com/taxonomy/term/seo</loc>
    <lastmod>2026-09-20</lastmod>
    <priority>0.8</priority>
  </url>
</urlset>

Best Practice Checklist

Always use Pathauto to generate clean URL aliases before generating a sitemapExclude user profiles (/user/*) from the sitemapExclude administrative and login pathsEnsure Drupal cron is running if you use native sitemap modules

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Drupal automatically create a sitemap?

No, Drupal Core does not. You must install a contributed module like Simple XML Sitemap or use an external crawler like BuildSitemap.

Why are my Drupal Views not in the sitemap?

Sitemap modules look at entities (Nodes, Users, Terms) in the database. Views are often configurations, not entities. If you don't explicitly add the View's path to the sitemap module configuration, it will be missed. BuildSitemap catches them automatically by crawling the links.

Should I include /node/ URLs?

No. You should always use the Pathauto module to generate clean, SEO-friendly aliases. Your sitemap should only contain these canonical aliases, and /node/ URLs should redirect to them.

Can I use this for decoupled Drupal?

Yes! If you are running Drupal purely as an API (JSON:API or GraphQL) with a React/Next.js frontend, traditional Drupal sitemap modules won't map your frontend URLs correctly. Crawling the live frontend is the best approach.

Does Drupal Simple XML Sitemap generate an index file?

Yes, by default the Simple XML Sitemap module chunks sitemaps that exceed a certain number of links into a sitemap index format.

Why does my Drupal sitemap return a 404 error?

This usually happens if you haven't run cron since generating the sitemap, or if your server's rewrite rules are intercepting the sitemap.xml path before Drupal can render it.

Related Tools

XML Sitemap Generator

Generate a standard XML sitemap.