How to create sitemap.xml?

[rolandtoth]

Could you provide some hint on how to create a sitemap.xml automatically?

[paulrobertlloyd]

Hi @rolandtoth. I’ve created one for my (yet un-launched) site. You can use the following template (this uses liquid, but the underlying idea will work regardless of template format):

---
permalink: /sitemap.xml
---
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
{%- for item in collections.all %}
{%- unless item.data.ignore == true %}
  <url>
    <loc>https://example.com{{ item.url }}</loc>
    <lastmod>{{ item.date | date: '%Y-%m-%d' }}</lastmod>
    <changefreq>{{ item.data.changefreq }}</changefreq>
    <priority>{{ item.data.priority }}</priority>
  </url>
{%- endunless %}
{%- endfor %}
</urlset>

You’ll need to create a collection (I’ve used collections.all) that encompasses all the files you want in your sitemap (see the documentation on how to achieve this). You’ll also want to ensure pages have the appropriate priorities and change frequencies set. I do this by using directory specific data files, to save adding these values to every page I create. Here’s an example for all my article pages:

{
  "layout": "layouts/article",
  "permalink": "{{ page.date | date: '%Y/%m' }}/{{ page.fileSlug }}.html",
  "changefreq": "monthly",
  "priority": "0.9"
}

For single pages, or if you need to override the above in a particular instance, just set the same values in your frontmatter, like so:

---
title: 'My great page'
permalink: /path/to/index.html
changefreq: weekly
priority: 1
---
Hello, and welcome to my great page!

I also allow pages to be excluded from the sitemap if they have the value ignore set to true. For example, here’s my 404 page:

---
title: '404 - Page Not Found'
layout: layouts/page
permalink: /404.html
ignore: true
---

Hope this helps!

[rolandtoth]

Thanks @paulrobertlloyd ,

this was really useful. I made some minor modifications (added my own filters and adjusted to nunjucks, plus added an xsl stylesheet):

---
permalink: /sitemap.xml
sitemapIgnore: true
---
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="/assets/styles/sitemap.xsl"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
{%- for item in collections.all %}
{%- if item.data.sitemapIgnore !== true %}
  <url>
    <loc>{{ item.url | httpUrl }}</loc>
    {% if item.data.premier.date -%}
    <lastmod>{{ item.data.premier.date | dateDisplay("toISOString") }}</lastmod>
    {%- else -%}
    <lastmod>{{ item.date | dateDisplay("toISOString") }}</lastmod>
    {%- endif %}
    <changefreq>{{ item.data.changefreq | valueIfEmpty("monthly") }}</changefreq>
    <priority>{{ item.data.priority | valueIfEmpty("0.5") }}</priority>
  </url>
{%- endif %}
{%- endfor %}
</urlset>

https://neptunbrigad.hu/sitemap.xml

[edwardhorsford]

Thanks, this looks really useful too!

Possibly a good candidate for the tutorials section.

[edwardhorsford]

@rolandtoth I'm curious what your valueIfEmpty('foobar') filter is doing.

Why not do {{ item.data.changefreq | "monthly" }}?

[rolandtoth]

It's a filter I created for nunjucks so that if the variable I apply on doesn't exist then it will try using alternative values. I tried using your suggestion but the build failed ("Template render error").

module.exports = function () {
    for (arg of arguments) {
        if (arg) {
            return arg;
        }
    }

    return false;
};

It's not too sophisticated but so far so good. It accepts multiple values, eg. for the SEO description I use something like this:

{{ seo_description | valueIfEmpty(excerpt, title) }}

So if the frontmatter seo_description is not set, it will try other frontmatter data (excerpt and title) and outputs the first that has value.

[edwardhorsford]

Oops, I got my syntax wrong. What I wanted to suggest was this:
{{ item.data.changefreq or "monthly" }}

For your case I'm pretty sure you could do:
{{ seo_description or excerpt or title}}

[edwardhorsford]

@zachleat is collections.all documented? I hadn't seen it. It's not mentioned on the collections page. It's used on the permalinks page though.

I'd assumed that since collections group things together by tag, that a tag would be required for it to ever appear. The collections.all method is great.

[rolandtoth]

@edwardhorsford

Thanks for the "var1 or var2" syntax, it works. However, if you apply a filter on it, you need to put them in parenthesis, otherwise the filter will be applied to the last item only.

<lastmod>{{ (item.data.premier.date or item.date) | dateDisplay("toISOString") }}</lastmod>

[mathiasbynens]

Here’s how I did it for v8.dev: 11ty/eleventy-base-blog#22 (before I saw this thread)

[edwardhorsford]

@rolandtoth @paulrobertlloyd @mathiasbynens

per 11ty/buildawesome#253, if you're using pagination, are pages that are generated showing up in your sitemap? I found collections.all was not listing all the pages.

[rolandtoth]

Sorry, I don't have pagination in any project where I have sitemap :)

Update: just added a sitemap and pages like /page-3/, /page-4/, etc are not included.

[zachleat]

@edwardhorsford per your comment here #1853 (comment) it looks like no! I’ve filed #21