sitemap

What is sitemap?

The sitemap npm package is a powerful tool for generating XML sitemaps for your website. It helps search engines like Google to better understand the structure of your site and improve its indexing. The package supports various features such as creating sitemaps, adding URLs, and generating sitemap indices.

What are sitemap's main functionalities?

Creating a Sitemap

This feature allows you to create a basic sitemap with a few URLs. The SitemapStream class is used to create a stream, and URLs are added using the write method. Finally, the stream is ended and written to a file.

const { SitemapStream, streamToPromise } = require('sitemap');
const { createWriteStream } = require('fs');

const sitemap = new SitemapStream({ hostname: 'https://example.com' });
const writeStream = createWriteStream('./sitemap.xml');
sitemap.pipe(writeStream);

sitemap.write({ url: '/page-1/', changefreq: 'daily', priority: 0.8 });
sitemap.write({ url: '/page-2/', changefreq: 'weekly', priority: 0.5 });
sitemap.end();

streamToPromise(writeStream).then(() => console.log('Sitemap created successfully.'));

Adding URLs Dynamically

This feature demonstrates how to add URLs to the sitemap dynamically from an array. This is useful when you have a list of URLs that you want to include in your sitemap.

const { SitemapStream, streamToPromise } = require('sitemap');
const { createWriteStream } = require('fs');

const sitemap = new SitemapStream({ hostname: 'https://example.com' });
const writeStream = createWriteStream('./sitemap.xml');
sitemap.pipe(writeStream);

const urls = [
  { url: '/page-1/', changefreq: 'daily', priority: 0.8 },
  { url: '/page-2/', changefreq: 'weekly', priority: 0.5 }
];

urls.forEach(url => sitemap.write(url));
sitemap.end();

streamToPromise(writeStream).then(() => console.log('Sitemap created successfully.'));

Generating a Sitemap Index

This feature allows you to create a sitemap index, which is useful for large websites that have multiple sitemaps. The SitemapIndexStream class is used to create the index, and individual sitemaps are added using the write method.

const { SitemapIndexStream, streamToPromise } = require('sitemap');
const { createWriteStream } = require('fs');

const sitemapIndex = new SitemapIndexStream();
const writeStream = createWriteStream('./sitemap-index.xml');
sitemapIndex.pipe(writeStream);

sitemapIndex.write({ url: 'https://example.com/sitemap-1.xml', lastmod: '2023-01-01' });
sitemapIndex.write({ url: 'https://example.com/sitemap-2.xml', lastmod: '2023-01-02' });
sitemapIndex.end();

streamToPromise(writeStream).then(() => console.log('Sitemap index created successfully.'));

Other packages similar to sitemap

sitemap-generator

The sitemap-generator package is another tool for creating sitemaps. It is a bit simpler and more straightforward compared to sitemap. It crawls your website and automatically generates a sitemap based on the discovered URLs. This package is useful if you prefer an automated approach to sitemap generation.

xmlbuilder

The xmlbuilder package is a general-purpose XML builder that can be used to create sitemaps among other XML documents. It provides a more manual approach compared to sitemap, giving you full control over the XML structure. This package is suitable if you need to generate custom XML documents beyond just sitemaps.

sitemap-xml

The sitemap-xml package is a lightweight alternative for generating sitemaps. It offers basic functionality for creating sitemaps and adding URLs. It is less feature-rich compared to sitemap but can be a good choice for simpler use cases.

README

sitemap.js

sitemap.js is a high-level sitemap-generating framework that makes creating sitemap XML files easy.

Installation

It's recommended to install via npm:

npm install -g sitemap

Usage

Here's an example of using sitemap.js with express:

var express = require('express')
  , sm = require('sitemap');

var app = express.createServer()
  , sitemap = sm.createSitemap ({
      hostname: 'http://example.com',
      cacheTime: 600000,  // 600 sec cache period
      urls: [
        { url: '/page-1/',  changefreq: 'dayly', priority: 0.3 },
        { url: '/page-2/',  changefreq: 'monthly',  priority: 0.7 },
        { url: '/page-2/' } // changefreq: 'weekly',  priority: 0.5
      ]
    });

app.get('/sitemap.xml', function(req, res) {
  res.header('Content-Type', 'application/xml');
  res.send( sitemap.toXML() );
});

app.listen(3000);

License

See LICENSE file.