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Eleventy Baseline

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sitemap

INTERNAL_KEY: '_sitemap'

What it does

The sitemap module emits /sitemap.xml from your built pages. In single-language mode, one flat sitemap. With multilang active, one sitemap per language at /<lang>/sitemap.xml plus a sitemap index at /sitemap.xml that points at each. The module also adds a computed page.sitemap to every page so you can opt pages out from front matter.

The sitemap is rendered through virtual templates: synthetic templates Baseline injects into the build, not files you write. They use Eleventy's normal collection access (collections.all) and the same data cascade your pages do.

Active when

options.sitemap is truthy. Defaults to true. Set sitemap: false to skip the module entirely.

Lifecycle

  • Build-time. Registers virtual templates: a single /sitemap.xml, or per-language sitemaps plus an index if multilang is active.
  • Cascade-time. Computed page.sitemap resolves on every page from the cascade (its ignore, changefreq, priority fields).

The sitemap virtual templates set _internal: true so they do not get a page context. They are emitted as XML, not HTML, and the head module skips them.

How it works

  1. Compute page.sitemap. Registered as eleventyComputed.page.sitemap. Resolves ignore, changefreq, priority from cascade data.
  2. Resolve language config. Reads settings.languages through normalizeLanguages, the same helper the multilang module uses.
  3. Register virtual templates.
    • Single-language: one template at /sitemap.xml. Loops collections.all, filters excluded pages, emits <urlset> with <loc>, optional <lastmod>, optional <changefreq>, optional <priority>.
    • Multilingual: one template per language at <lang>/sitemap.xml, plus a sitemap index template at /sitemap.xml. Per-language sitemaps include <xhtml:link> alternates for every translation sibling, sourced from the translation map.

Each virtual template sets _internal: true so the page-context registry skips it (it is not a real page). It also sets eleventyExcludeFromCollections: true so the sitemap does not list itself.

Defaults

  • Sitemap output. /sitemap.xml in single-language mode, or /<lang>/sitemap.xml plus /sitemap.xml (the index) when multilang is active.
  • Computed page.sitemap. Every page receives { ignore, changefreq, priority }.
    • ignore: resolved from data.noindex, data.page.noindex, or data.settings.noindex.
    • changefreq: '' (omitted in output unless you set it).
    • priority: -1 (omitted in output unless you set it).
  • Exclusion rules. A page is left out of the sitemap if any of the following are true: settings.noindex (suppresses the entire sitemap), noindex: true in front matter, sitemap.ignore: true in front matter, eleventyExcludeFromCollections: true.

Settings

The sitemap module reads three keys on the settings argument. Full shape on Site settings.

Key Type Used for
settings.url string Building absolute <loc> entries.
settings.noindex boolean When true, the entire sitemap is suppressed (or rendered empty).
settings.languages object Drives per-language partitioning when multilang is active. Read through the same normalisation as the multilang module.

Options

Option Type Default Meaning
sitemap boolean true Activate the module. Set false to skip it.

Per-page sitemap controls

Set these in front matter:

sitemap:
  ignore: true # exclude from sitemap (page still renders)
  changefreq: weekly
  priority: 0.8
  lastmod: 2026-01-15
  • noindex: true in front matter excludes the page from the sitemap and (because the head module reads the same field) emits a robots meta tag.
  • sitemap.ignore: true is sitemap-only exclusion. The page still renders and search engines can still index it.
  • eleventyExcludeFromCollections: true keeps the page out of all collections, including collections.all, so the sitemap never sees it.

lastmod uses sitemap.lastmod if you set it; otherwise the page date.

Multilingual mode

When the multilang module is active and settings.languages has more than one entry, the layout switches automatically:

  • /en/sitemap.xml, /nl/sitemap.xml, etc.: one per language, listing only that language's pages plus hreflang alternates.
  • /sitemap.xml: a sitemap index pointing at each per-language sitemap.

Tips

  • Set settings.noindex: true to suppress the sitemap entirely (useful for staging environments).
  • Search engines treat changefreq and priority as hints. Set them sparingly, only where you actually have a useful answer.
  • Provide lastmod in front matter when you care about freshness signals. Without one, the page date is used.
  • URLs are absolutized via Eleventy's HtmlBasePlugin using settings.url and pathPrefix. Keep settings.url origin-only (no trailing path), and use pathPrefix for sub-path deployments.

Peer deps

None.

See also

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