How do I make an XML sitemap?

An XML sitemap tells search engines which pages in your site are available to crawl and when each was last modified. There's an example SEO Sitemap Velocity Format that can be applied to an Index Block configured to index your site.

For the reasoning behind the different approaches, and when each is appropriate, see Creating a sitemap. The steps below are one complete working setup.

1. Create a Velocity Format containing the following, replacing "https://www.example.com" with your site's URL and ".html" with your pages' file extension:

   Velocity Copy

   ## Root domain where website is hosted
   #set ($websiteURL = "https://www.example.com")
   ## Page extension
   #set ($extension = ".html")
   #set ($pages = $_XPathTool.selectNodes($contentRoot, "//system-page[is-published][last-published-on]"))
   <urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
   #foreach ($p in $pages)
      #set ($path = $p.getChild("path").value)
      #set ($last = $p.getChild("last-modified"))
      <url>
         <loc>${websiteURL}${path}${extension}</loc>
         <lastmod>#showDate($last.value, 'yyyy-MM-dd')</lastmod>
      </url>
   #end
   </urlset>
   #macro (showDate $dateValue $formatString)
      #if ($dateValue != "")
          #set ($dateObject = $_DateTool.getDate($dateValue))
      #else
          #set ($dateObject = $_DateTool.getDate())
      #end
      #set ($dateString = $_DateTool.format($formatString, $dateObject))
      ${dateString}
   #end

2. Create a Template containing a single DEFAULT region:

   HTML Copy

   <system-region name="DEFAULT"/>

3. Create an Index Block with these settings:
   • Index type — Folder Index
   • Index folder — the base folder of your site
   • Rendering behavior — Render normally, starting at the indexed folder
   • Depth of index — deep enough to reach the pages in your site
   • Max rendered assets — high enough to cover the pages in your site
   • Indexed asset content — Regular Content and System Metadata
   • Indexed asset types — Pages
   • Page XML — Do not render page XML inline
   • Sort method — URLs can appear in any order in a sitemap, so choose whatever suits you
4. Create a Configuration and an Output with these settings:
   • Type of data — XML
   • File extension — .xml
   • Template — the Template you created above
   • Check Publishable
   • Check Include XML Declaration in Published Files
   • In Regions, assign the sitemap Index Block and Format to the DEFAULT region
5. Create a Content Type using the sitemap Configuration and a Metadata Set of your choice. A Data Definition or WYSIWYG isn't needed.
6. Create a new page in the base folder of your site using that Content Type.