Sitemap Framework Configuration

To initialize the sitemap framework in your Django project, you must register the sitemaps application and configure your URL patterns to serve the sitemap XML files.

Basic Configuration

To enable the sitemap framework, add django.contrib.sitemaps and django.contrib.sites to your INSTALLED_APPS and define a SITE_ID. The SiteMapsConfig class in django/contrib/sitemaps/apps.py handles the application initialization, including setting the default auto field to django.db.models.AutoField.

# settings.py
INSTALLED_APPS = [
    "django.contrib.sites",
    "django.contrib.sitemaps",
    # ... your other apps
]

SITE_ID = 1

Defining a Sitemap Class

Create a subclass of django.contrib.sitemaps.Sitemap to define which URLs should be included. You must implement the items() method, which returns a list of objects.

# sitemaps.py
from django.contrib.sitemaps import Sitemap
from .models import Entry

class BlogSitemap(Sitemap):
    changefreq = "never"
    priority = 0.5

    def items(self):
        # Returns the objects to include in the sitemap
        return Entry.objects.filter(is_draft=False)

    def lastmod(self, obj):
        # Returns the last modification date for an object
        return obj.pub_date

Configuring URL Patterns

You can serve a single sitemap or a sitemap index that points to multiple sectioned sitemaps. Use the views provided in django.contrib.sitemaps.views.

# urls.py
from django.contrib.sitemaps import views
from django.urls import path
from .sitemaps import BlogSitemap

sitemaps = {
    "blog": BlogSitemap,
}

urlpatterns = [
    # Sitemap index (useful for large sites)
    path(
        "sitemap.xml",
        views.index,
        {"sitemaps": sitemaps},
        name="django.contrib.sitemaps.views.index",
    ),
    # Individual sitemap sections
    path(
        "sitemap-<section>.xml",
        views.sitemap,
        {"sitemaps": sitemaps},
        name="django.contrib.sitemaps.views.sitemap",
    ),
]

Using GenericSitemap for Quick Setup

If you don't need custom logic, use GenericSitemap to generate a sitemap directly from a queryset. This is frequently used for simple models as seen in tests/sitemaps_tests/urls/http.py.

from django.contrib.sitemaps import GenericSitemap
from .models import TestModel

generic_sitemaps = {
    "generic": GenericSitemap(
        {
            "queryset": TestModel.objects.order_by("pk").all(),
            "date_field": "lastmod",
        },
        priority=0.6
    ),
}

# In urlpatterns:
# path("sitemap-generic.xml", views.sitemap, {"sitemaps": generic_sitemaps})

Internationalization (i18n) Support

To generate sitemaps for multilingual sites, set the i18n attribute to True on your Sitemap class. You can also enable alternates to include xhtml:link tags for other language versions.

class SimpleI18nSitemap(Sitemap):
    i18n = True
    alternates = True
    x_default = True

    def items(self):
        return I18nTestModel.objects.all()

Troubleshooting and Gotchas

• Template Loading: Even though the sitemap framework doesn't use database tables, it must be in INSTALLED_APPS. This ensures Django's template loader can find the default XML templates required to render the sitemap views.
• Sites Framework Dependency: If django.contrib.sites is not installed, the sitemap views will raise an ImproperlyConfigured error unless you manually pass a Site or RequestSite object to the view.
• Last-Modified Header: The Last-Modified HTTP header is only sent by the sitemap view if all items returned by the Sitemap.items() method have a valid lastmod value. If even one item returns None for lastmod, the header will be omitted.
• Sitemap Location: Search engines typically only index links that are at the same directory level as the sitemap or deeper. It is highly recommended to place your sitemap at the root URL (e.g., /sitemap.xml).