This post shows you how to create an XML sitemap in your Umbraco website.

I will share the code I have used to create my XML sitemap page http://www.codeshare.co.uk/xmlsitemap
You will need an XML sitemap when you submit your site to search engines.

Just add a template called XMLSitemap

@inherits Umbraco.Web.Mvc.UmbracoTemplatePage

@{
    Layout = null;
    Response.AddHeader("Content-Type", "text/xml");
    IPublishedContent homePage = Model.Content.AncestorOrSelf("home");
    const string DATE_TIME_FORMAT = "yyyy-MM-ddTHH:mm:sszzz";
}

<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9" 
  xmlns:image="http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap-image/1.1" 
  xmlns:video="http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap-video/1.1">
<url><loc>@homePage.UrlWithDomain()</loc><priority>1.0</priority><lastmod>@homePage.UpdateDate.ToString(DATE_TIME_FORMAT)</lastmod></url>
@RenderChildPages(homePage.Children, DATE_TIME_FORMAT)
</urlset>
                
@helper RenderChildPages(IEnumerable<IPublishedContent> pages, string dateTimeFormat)
{
    if (pages.Any())
    {
        foreach (IPublishedContent item in pages.Where(x => x.IsVisible()))
        {
            if (!(item.HasValue("excludeFromSitemap") && (bool)item.GetPropertyValue("excludeFromSitemap")))
            {
<url><loc>@item.UrlWithDomain()</loc><lastmod>@item.UpdateDate.ToString(dateTimeFormat)</lastmod></url>
                if (item.Children.Where(x => x.IsVisible()).Any())
                {                        
                    @RenderChildPages(item.Children, dateTimeFormat)
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

Make sure you don't try and add any spaces or tabs to this line beginning with <url> as it will cause an error.

Now you just need to create a document type called XMLSitemap and use the XMLSitemap template.

Make sure your home node allows you to create the XMLSitemap under it.

If you want to do a rewrite rule to map /sitemap.xml to /xmlsitemap you can find out how to do so here

If you would like to know more about Umbraco, why not use your 10 day free trial with pluralsight and go through the umbraco courses.