Visual sitemap generator
Turn any XML sitemap, or a quick crawl of a URL, into a map of the site: every section a branch, every page a station, with counts and depths you can act on. Export it as PNG, PDF or Mermaid.
No sitemap URL handy? Find it, or .
Two ways to read a site’s shape
An XML sitemap tells you what the site claims exists. A crawl tells you what a visitor or search engine can actually reach by following links. The map above uses the same line-diagram for both, so they are easy to compare.
- URL hierarchy (sitemap mode). Branches are folders in the path. Big numbers on one branch show where the site’s weight sits; long thin branches show folder nesting nobody needs.
- Click depth (crawl mode). Google’s guidance on site structure is to make important pages reachable through links from other pages, ideally without many hops from the homepage. The click-depth bars show how far each page really is.
- Orphan candidates. After a crawl, compare against the sitemap. URLs in the sitemap that no crawled page links to have no internal path for users and rely on the sitemap alone for discovery.
For the reasoning behind flat versus deep structures, see the site architecture guide. To fix what you found, run the file through the sitemap checker, or keep a copy and compare it after your next release.
The rest of the toolkit
Questions
What is a visual sitemap?
A visual sitemap is a diagram of a website’s pages arranged by hierarchy, so you can see sections, how deep they go and how many pages each holds. This tool draws it as a transit-style line map from an XML sitemap or from a small crawl of the site.
Should I map from the XML sitemap or from a crawl?
Use the XML sitemap to see the URL hierarchy of everything you have asked search engines to index. Use the crawl to see click depth: how many clicks from the homepage each page really is. Run both and the tool lists sitemap URLs the crawl never reached, which are orphan-page candidates.
How big a site can it map?
Sitemap mode runs in your browser and handles files up to the protocol limit of 50,000 URLs; for a sitemap index, pick a child sitemap to load. Crawl mode is a quick sample: up to 60 pages, three clicks deep and 20 seconds, and it obeys the site’s robots.txt.
Is URL depth the same as click depth?
No. URL depth counts folders in the path (/blog/2026/post is depth 3). Click depth counts links followed from the homepage. A page can have a short URL but be buried five clicks deep, and search engines care about the second more.
Can I export the visual sitemap as an image or PDF?
Yes. Download a top-down diagram as PNG or SVG, print it to PDF, or copy it as Mermaid text, which FigJam, Notion, GitHub and Confluence render as a diagram. You can also export an indented outline or every URL with its section and depth as CSV.
Why do I need a visual sitemap?
It makes structure problems visible that a flat URL list hides: one section holding most of the site, folders nested five deep, thin sections with two pages, and pages nobody links to. It is also the quickest way to explain a site’s structure to a client or a team before a redesign or migration.
Is a visual sitemap the same as an XML sitemap?
No. An XML sitemap is a file for search engines that lists URLs. A visual sitemap is a diagram for people that shows how those pages are organised. This tool turns the first into the second, and can also build one by crawling.