What we measured ·
What Google shows for "how to view sitemap of website" right now
Method: Live Google results (United States, desktop, English) for "how to view sitemap of website" retrieved through DataForSEO's SERP API on 2026-10-22. Page types are our own classification of each ranking URL.
The top 8 organic results for "how to view sitemap of website" were 3 free tools, 3 guides or explainers, 1 forum or community thread, 1 product or service page. The first three were seomator.com, sitegpt.ai, stackoverflow.com. Community threads (stackoverflow.com) ranked on page one, a sign searchers want first-hand answers, not only vendor pages.
Google showed an AI Overview for this query, citing 7 source domains including seocrawl.ai, stackoverflow.com, www.seoptimer.com, www.youtube.com. Pages that state the answer directly and early are the ones an Overview can quote.
People Also Ask listed: "How can I extract the sitemap from a website?"; "How do I get a sitemap for my website?"; "How can I check for a website's sitemap?"; "Does every website have a sitemap?". The sections below answer the ones within this page's scope.
| Position | Domain | Page type |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | seomator.com | Free tool |
| 2 | sitegpt.ai | Free tool |
| 3 | stackoverflow.com | Forum or community thread |
| 4 | www.seoptimer.com | Free tool |
| 5 | seocrawl.ai | Guide or explainer |
| 6 | digitalcommons.nc.gov | Guide or explainer |
Method 1: try the common URLs
Most sitemaps live at a predictable path.
| Path | Typically used by |
|---|---|
| /sitemap.xml | Most custom sites, Shopify, Webflow, Squarespace, Wix |
| /sitemap_index.xml | Yoast SEO and Rank Math on WordPress |
| /wp-sitemap.xml | WordPress core sitemap (5.5 and later) |
| /sitemap-index.xml | Some frameworks and generators |
| /sitemap.xml.gz | Large sites using compression |
Method 2: check robots.txt
Open https://example.com/robots.txt and look for lines beginning with Sitemap:, followed by a full URL. Sites can list several sitemaps there, and the paths may be anywhere on the domain or even on a different host, such as a CDN. This is the location search engines use when they discover sitemaps on their own.
Methods 3 and 4: search operators and page source
Search Google for site:example.com filetype:xml or site:example.com inurl:sitemap. Results are hit and miss, since many sitemaps never appear in search results, but this can find unusual locations. Some sites also link an HTML sitemap in the footer, or reference the XML sitemap in a link element in the page head; view the page source and search for 'sitemap'.
Methods 5 and 6: Search Console and tools
For a site you own, Search Console's Sitemaps report lists submitted sitemaps, when each was last read, and how many URLs were discovered. Bing Webmaster Tools has an equivalent. For any site, sitemap finder tools try the common paths and robots.txt automatically. Our free sitemap checker accepts a domain, locates the sitemap, and validates it.
When there is no sitemap
Some sites have none. Google states that a sitemap is most useful for large sites, new sites with few external links, and sites with rich media or news content; a small site with good internal links can be crawled without one. If you own the site and find no sitemap, generate one from your CMS or build process and reference it in robots.txt. If it is a competitor's site, a crawler such as Screaming Frog can build a URL list instead. SerionFlow is the wrong tool if you just need a site's sitemap URL; robots.txt or our free sitemap checker finds it faster.
Clear answers
Frequently asked questions
Does every website have a sitemap?
+
No. Many CMSs create one automatically, but custom and small sites may not have one. It is recommended but not required.
How can I extract the URLs from a sitemap?
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Open the sitemap in a browser and copy the loc values, import it into a spreadsheet, or use a sitemap extractor or crawler that reads sitemaps and exports the URL list.
About the author
Shadrack Kumi · Founder, SerionFlow
Shadrack builds SerionFlow's site research, page generation, and Search Console tooling, and runs the free tools these guides pair with. Search Console figures cited on these pages come from serionflow.com's own property.
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