next-sitemap

Sitemap generator for next.js. Generate sitemap(s) and robots.txt for all static/pre-rendered/dynamic/server-side pages.

Table of contents

• Getting started
  • Installation
  • Create config file
  • Building sitemaps
• Splitting large sitemap into multiple files
• Configuration Options
• Custom transformation function
• Full configuration example
• Generating dynamic/server-side sitemaps

Getting started

Installation

yarn add next-sitemap -D

Create config file

next-sitemap requires a basic config file (next-sitemap.js) under your project root

✅ next-sitemap now loads environment variables from .env files by default.

module.exports = {
  siteUrl: process.env.SITE_URL || 'https://example.com',
  generateRobotsTxt: true, // (optional)
  // ...other options
}

Building sitemaps

Add next-sitemap as your postbuild script

{
  "build": "next build",
  "postbuild": "next-sitemap"
}

Having next-sitemap command & next-sitemap.js file may result in file opening instead of building sitemaps in windows machines. Please read more about the issue here.

As a solution to this, it is now possible to use a custom config file instead of next-sitemap.js. Just pass --config <your-config-file>.js to build command.

From now onwards:

• next-sitemap uses configuration from next-sitemap.js
• next-sitemap --config <custom-config-file>.js uses config from <custom-config-file>.js

Splitting large sitemap into multiple files

Define the sitemapSize property in next-sitemap.js to split large sitemap into multiple files.

module.exports = {
  siteUrl: 'https://example.com',
  generateRobotsTxt: true,
  sitemapSize: 7000,
}

Above is the minimal configuration to split a large sitemap. When the number of URLs in a sitemap is more than 7000, next-sitemap will create sitemap (e.g. sitemap-1.xml, sitemap-2.xml) and index (e.g. sitemap.xml) files.

Configuration Options

property	description	type
siteUrl	Base url of your website	string
changefreq (optional)	Change frequency. Default daily	string
priority (optional)	Priority. Default 0.7	number
sitemapBaseFileName (optional)	The name of the generated sitemap file before the file extension. Default "sitemap"	string
alternateRefs (optional)	Denote multi-language support by unique URL. Default []	AlternateRef[]
sitemapSize(optional)	Split large sitemap into multiple files by specifying sitemap size. Default 5000	number
generateRobotsTxt (optional)	Generate a robots.txt file and list the generated sitemaps. Default false	boolean
robotsTxtOptions.policies (optional)	Policies for generating robots.txt. Default [{ userAgent: '*', allow: '/' }]	[]
robotsTxtOptions.additionalSitemaps (optional)	Options to add addition sitemap to robots.txt host entry	string[]
autoLastmod (optional)	Add <lastmod/> property. Default true	true
exclude (optional)	Array of relative paths (wildcard pattern supported) to exclude from listing on sitemap.xml or sitemap-*.xml. e.g.: ['/page-0', '/page-*', '/private/*']. Apart from this option next-sitemap also offers a custom transform option which could be used to exclude urls that match specific patterns	string[]
sourceDir (optional)	next.js build directory. Default .next	string
outDir (optional)	All the generated files will be exported to this directory. Default public	string
transform (optional)	A transformation function, which runs for each relative-path in the sitemap. Returning null value from the transformation function will result in the exclusion of that specific path from the generated sitemap list.	async function

Custom transformation function

Custom transformation provides an extension method to add, remove or exclude path or properties from a url-set. Transform function runs for each relative path in the sitemap. And use the key: value object to add properties in the XML.

Returning null value from the transformation function will result in the exclusion of that specific relative-path from the generated sitemap list.

module.exports = {
  transform: async (config, path) => {
    // custom function to ignore the path
    if (customIgnoreFunction(path)) {
      return null
    }

    // only create changefreq along with path
    // returning partial properties will result in generation of XML field with only returned values.
    if (customLimitedField(path)) {
      // This returns `path` & `changefreq`. Hence it will result in the generation of XML field with `path` and  `changefreq` properties only.
      return {
        loc: path, // => this will be exported as http(s)://<config.siteUrl>/<path>
        changefreq: 'weekly',
      }
    }

    // Use default transformation for all other cases
    return {
      loc: path, // => this will be exported as http(s)://<config.siteUrl>/<path>
      changefreq: config.changefreq,
      priority: config.priority,
      lastmod: config.autoLastmod ? new Date().toISOString() : undefined,
      alternateRefs: config.alternateRefs ?? [],
    }
  },
}

Full configuration example

Here's an example next-sitemap.js configuration with all options

module.exports = {
  siteUrl: 'https://example.com',
  changefreq: 'daily',
  priority: 0.7,
  sitemapSize: 5000,
  generateRobotsTxt: true,
  exclude: ['/protected-page', '/awesome/secret-page'],
  alternateRefs: [
    {
      href: 'https://es.example.com',
      hreflang: 'es',
    },
    {
      href: 'https://fr.example.com',
      hreflang: 'fr',
    },
  ],
  // Default transformation function
  transform: async (config, path) => {
    return {
      loc: path, // => this will be exported as http(s)://<config.siteUrl>/<path>
      changefreq: config.changefreq,
      priority: config.priority,
      lastmod: config.autoLastmod ? new Date().toISOString() : undefined,
      alternateRefs: config.alternateRefs ?? [],
    }
  },
  robotsTxtOptions: {
    policies: [
      {
        userAgent: '*',
        allow: '/',
      },
      {
        userAgent: 'test-bot',
        allow: ['/path', '/path-2'],
      },
      {
        userAgent: 'black-listed-bot',
        disallow: ['/sub-path-1', '/path-2'],
      },
    ],
    additionalSitemaps: [
      'https://example.com/my-custom-sitemap-1.xml',
      'https://example.com/my-custom-sitemap-2.xml',
      'https://example.com/my-custom-sitemap-3.xml',
    ],
  },
}

Above configuration will generate sitemaps based on your project and a robots.txt like this.

# *
User-agent: *
Allow: /

# test-bot
User-agent: test-bot
Allow: /path
Allow: /path-2

# black-listed-bot
User-agent: black-listed-bot
Disallow: /sub-path-1
Disallow: /path-2

# Host
Host: https://example.com

# Sitemaps
....
<---Generated sitemap list--->
....
Sitemap: https://example.com/my-custom-sitemap-1.xml
Sitemap: https://example.com/my-custom-sitemap-2.xml
Sitemap: https://example.com/my-custom-sitemap-3.xml

Generating dynamic/server-side sitemaps

next-sitemap now provides a simple API to generate server side sitemaps. This will help to dynamically generate sitemaps by sourcing data from CMS or custom source.

Here's a sample script to generate sitemaps on server side. Create pages/server-sitemap.xml/index.tsx page and add the following content.

// pages/server-sitemap.xml/index.tsx

import { getServerSideSitemap } from 'next-sitemap'
import { GetServerSideProps } from 'next'

export const getServerSideProps: GetServerSideProps = async (ctx) => {
  // Method to source urls from cms
  // const urls = await fetch('https//example.com/api')

  const fields = [
    {
      loc: 'https://example.com', // Absolute url
      lastmod: new Date().toISOString(),
      // changefreq
      // priority
    },
    {
      loc: 'https://example.com/dynamic-path-2', // Absolute url
      lastmod: new Date().toISOString(),
      // changefreq
      // priority
    },
  ]

  return getServerSideSitemap(ctx, fields)
}

// Default export to prevent next.js errors
export default () => {}

Now, next.js is serving the dynamic sitemap from http://localhost:3000/server-sitemap.xml.

List the dynamic sitemap page in robotTxtOptions.additionalSitemaps and exclude this path from static sitemap list.

// next-sitemap.js
module.exports = {
  siteUrl: 'https://example.com',
  generateRobotsTxt: true,
  exclude: ['/server-sitemap.xml'], // <= exclude here
  robotsTxtOptions: {
    additionalSitemaps: [
      'https://example.com/server-sitemap.xml', // <==== Add here
    ],
  },
}

In this way, next-sitemap will manage the sitemaps for all your static pages and your dynamic sitemap will be listed on robots.txt.

Contribution

All PRs are welcome :)