Sitemaps

Overview

A sitemap is an XML file that lists all the pages on your website. It helps search engines discover and crawl your content efficiently. RndrKit lets you generate and manage sitemaps directly from the dashboard, so you do not need to maintain them manually in your application code.

Why Sitemaps Matter for SPAs

Single-page applications often have a major discoverability problem: search engines find new pages by following links from already-indexed pages. If your SPA loads content dynamically and does not have traditional HTML links between pages, search engines may never discover many of your pages.

A sitemap solves this by telling search engines exactly which pages exist and should be crawled.

Generating a Sitemap

  1. Go to your domain's detail page and click the Sitemap tab.
  2. Click Generate Sitemap.
  3. RndrKit will crawl your site and build a list of all discoverable pages.
  4. Review the generated sitemap and remove any pages you do not want indexed.

The generated sitemap is served at:

https://www.example.com/sitemap.xml

When a bot requests this URL, RndrKit serves the sitemap XML directly without proxying to your origin.

Sitemap Format

The generated sitemap follows the standard XML sitemap protocol:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
  <url>
    <loc>https://www.example.com/</loc>
    <lastmod>2026-01-15</lastmod>
    <changefreq>weekly</changefreq>
    <priority>1.0</priority>
  </url>
  <url>
    <loc>https://www.example.com/about</loc>
    <lastmod>2026-01-10</lastmod>
    <changefreq>monthly</changefreq>
    <priority>0.8</priority>
  </url>
</urlset>

Managing Sitemap Entries

Adding Pages

If the automatic sitemap generation misses pages, you can add them manually:

  1. Click Add URL on the sitemap management page.
  2. Enter the URL path (e.g., /contact).
  3. Set the optional fields:
    • Last Modified -- When the page was last updated
    • Change Frequency -- How often the page changes (daily, weekly, monthly)
    • Priority -- Relative importance from 0.0 to 1.0

Removing Pages

To exclude a page from the sitemap:

  1. Find the page in the sitemap list.
  2. Click Remove.

Pages you might want to exclude:

  • Thank-you or confirmation pages
  • Pages behind authentication
  • Duplicate content or paginated results
  • Internal utility pages

Updating the Sitemap

After making changes, click Save to update the sitemap. The changes are reflected immediately at your sitemap URL.

Submitting to Search Engines

After generating your sitemap, submit it to search engines for faster indexing:

Google Search Console

  1. Go to Google Search Console.
  2. Select your property.
  3. Navigate to Sitemaps in the sidebar.
  4. Enter your sitemap URL: https://www.example.com/sitemap.xml
  5. Click Submit.

Bing Webmaster Tools

  1. Go to Bing Webmaster Tools.
  2. Select your site.
  3. Go to Sitemaps.
  4. Click Submit Sitemap.
  5. Enter: https://www.example.com/sitemap.xml

Robots.txt Reference

You can also reference your sitemap in your robots.txt file, which RndrKit can manage for you. See Robots.txt Editor.

Sitemap: https://www.example.com/sitemap.xml

RndrKit's Sitemap vs. Your Origin's

Your origin server might already serve a sitemap at /sitemap.xml, or it might not -- it depends on your platform. Here is how to decide whether to enable RndrKit's sitemap feature.

When to enable RndrKit's sitemap

  • Your origin has no sitemap. This is common with AI builders like Lovable, where a sitemap only exists if the developer manually creates one in the /public directory. If there is nothing at your-app.lovable.app/sitemap.xml, turn on RndrKit's sitemap and you are covered.
  • Your origin's sitemap is outdated or incomplete. If your origin has a sitemap but it is missing pages or has stale URLs, RndrKit's version will be more accurate because it builds from your actual render logs plus any custom URLs you add.

When to leave it disabled

  • Your origin already has a solid sitemap. If your hosting platform generates a comprehensive, up-to-date sitemap automatically (e.g., a Next.js app with next-sitemap, or a CMS that handles this for you), there is no need to override it. RndrKit will simply proxy the request to your origin and serve the existing sitemap.
  • You generate sitemaps dynamically from a database. If your app builds sitemaps from a Supabase or Postgres query at request time, keep using that. It will always be the most accurate source of truth for your pages.

How it works under the hood

When the sitemap feature is enabled for a domain, RndrKit intercepts any request to /sitemap.xml and serves its own version instead of proxying to your origin. The sitemap is built from your render logs (pages that bots have actually visited) plus any custom URLs you have added through the dashboard. It is cached in Redis for 1 hour, so it stays fast.

When the feature is disabled, RndrKit does nothing special -- requests for /sitemap.xml pass through to your origin like any other request.

Platform notes

  • Lovable: Always has a robots.txt (which allows major search engines), but a sitemap.xml is not created by default. If you want one, you need to create it in the /public directory of your Lovable project -- or just enable RndrKit's sitemap feature and skip the hassle.

Best Practices

  • Keep it updated -- Regenerate or update your sitemap whenever you add or remove pages from your site.
  • Do not include blocked pages -- If a page is disallowed in robots.txt, do not include it in your sitemap.
  • Set realistic priorities -- Use 1.0 for your homepage, 0.8 for main landing pages, and 0.5 for standard content pages.
  • Monitor coverage -- Check Google Search Console's Coverage report to see which sitemap URLs are indexed and which have issues.

Next Steps

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Cache Management

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Robots.txt Editor