Sitemaps in Nuxt

The sitemap.xml file helps search engines discover your pages. Google considers sites "small" if they have 500 pages or fewer—you likely need a sitemap if you exceed this, have new sites with few backlinks, or update content frequently.

Automatic Generation

Nuxt generates sitemaps automatically with the Sitemap module:

Install and configure:

npx nuxi@latest module add sitemap

export default defineNuxtConfig({
  modules: ['@nuxtjs/sitemap'],
  site: {
    url: 'https://mysite.com'
  }
})

This creates a sitemap from your routes automatically. For static sites, it's generated at build time. For dynamic sites, it's generated on request.

The module handles:

• Route discovery from pages/ directory
• Dynamic routes with route rules
• Sitemap indexes for large sites
• Image and video sitemaps
• News sitemaps
• Multi-language sitemaps

For full configuration options, see the Sitemap module docs.

Static Sitemap

For small sites under 100 pages, create a static sitemap in your public directory:

public/
  sitemap.xml

Add your URLs with proper formatting:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
  <url>
    <loc>https://mysite.com/</loc>
    <lastmod>2024-11-03</lastmod>
  </url>
  <url>
    <loc>https://mysite.com/about</loc>
    <lastmod>2024-12-10</lastmod>
  </url>
</urlset>

Sitemaps are limited to 50,000 URLs or 50MB uncompressed. Use UTF-8 encoding and absolute URLs only.

Dynamic Generation

For sites with frequently changing content (e-commerce, blogs, news), generate sitemaps server-side with a Nitro route:

export default defineEventHandler(async (event) => {
  const pages = await fetchAllPages()

  const urls = pages.map(page => `
  <url>
    <loc>https://mysite.com${page.path}</loc>
    <lastmod>${page.updatedAt}</lastmod>
  </url>`).join('\n')

  const sitemap = `<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
${urls}
</urlset>`

  setHeader(event, 'Content-Type', 'application/xml')
  return sitemap
})

This runs on every request. For better performance, use the Sitemap module which caches and optimizes sitemap generation.

XML Sitemap Tags

A basic sitemap uses these elements:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
  <url>
    <loc>https://mysite.com/page</loc>
    <lastmod>2024-11-03</lastmod>
  </url>
</urlset>

Required and Optional Tags

Google only uses <lastmod> if it matches reality. If your page changed 7 years ago but you claim it updated yesterday, Google stops trusting your sitemap.

Don't bother with <changefreq> or <priority>—they increase file size without adding value.

Sitemap Index for Large Sites

If you exceed 50,000 URLs or 50MB, split your sitemap into multiple files:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<sitemapindex xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
  <sitemap>
    <loc>https://mysite.com/sitemap-products.xml</loc>
    <lastmod>2024-11-03</lastmod>
  </sitemap>
  <sitemap>
    <loc>https://mysite.com/sitemap-blog.xml</loc>
    <lastmod>2024-12-10</lastmod>
  </sitemap>
</sitemapindex>

Submit the index file to Google Search Console—it will crawl all referenced sitemaps. Maximize URLs per sitemap rather than creating many small files.

The Sitemap module handles this automatically when your site exceeds limits.

Specialized Sitemaps

News Sitemap

News publishers should create separate news sitemaps with articles from the last 2 days:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9"
        xmlns:news="http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap-news/0.9">
  <url>
    <loc>https://mysite.com/article</loc>
    <news:news>
      <news:publication>
        <news:name>Site Name</news:name>
        <news:language>en</news:language>
      </news:publication>
      <news:publication_date>2024-12-10T12:00:00+00:00</news:publication_date>
      <news:title>Article Title</news:title>
    </news:news>
  </url>
</urlset>

Remove articles older than 2 days to keep the sitemap fresh. Don't create new sitemaps daily—update the existing one.

Image Sitemap

For galleries or image-heavy sites, add image metadata:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9"
        xmlns:image="http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap-image/1.1">
  <url>
    <loc>https://mysite.com/page</loc>
    <image:image>
      <image:loc>https://mysite.com/image.jpg</image:loc>
      <image:title>Image Title</image:title>
    </image:image>
  </url>
</urlset>

Image sitemaps help Google find images loaded via JavaScript or not directly linked in HTML.

Submit to Google Search Console

After generating your sitemap, submit it to Google Search Console:

1. Verify site ownership (DNS, HTML file upload, or Google Analytics)
2. Navigate to Sitemaps under Indexing
3. Enter your sitemap URL: https://mysite.com/sitemap.xml
4. Click Submit

Google processes the sitemap and reports status:

• Success—sitemap accepted, pages discovered
• Pending—processing in progress
• Couldn't fetch—URL wrong or blocked by robots.txt

Check the Sitemaps report for coverage stats, indexing errors, and discovered URLs.

Before Submitting

Validate your sitemap:

• XML syntax is valid (use an online validator)
• All URLs return 200 status (not 404 or 500)
• URLs match canonical URLs exactly
• <lastmod> dates are accurate
• File uses UTF-8 encoding

Alternative Submission

Reference your sitemap in robots.txt:

User-agent: *
Allow: /

Sitemap: https://mysite.com/sitemap.xml

Google discovers this automatically when crawling your robots.txt.