Sitemap Generator

  • Release version: Yokohama
  • Updated January 30, 2025
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Sitemap Generator

    The ServiceNow Sitemap Generator application enables you to define and automatically generate XML sitemaps to enhance the search engine optimization (SEO) of your public portal pages. This tool helps ensure that web crawlers can effectively index your portal content, improving its visibility in search engine results.

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    Activation

    The Sitemap Generator (plugin snuxseositemap) can be activated directly from your ServiceNow instance if you have the admin role, or alternatively, from the ServiceNow Store. Activation allows you to start creating and managing XML sitemaps for your portals.

    Sitemap Requirements

    • Public Access Only: Sitemaps must include only pages accessible by unauthenticated users. The generator automatically excludes non-public portal URLs, except those with custom domains (non-ServiceNow domains). Excluded URLs are logged in the Application Log table.
    • Exclude Redirects and NOINDEX Pages: Pages that respond with 301 redirects or contain a NOINDEX meta tag (such as retired or expired pages) must not be included. When using scripts to create sitemaps, incorporate logic to mimic SEO script includes that handle NOINDEX tags.
    • Canonical URLs and hreflang Tags: For pages with canonical URLs or hreflang tags, sitemaps should include those canonical or localized URLs. Scripted sitemaps should replicate the SEO script include logic to return these URLs appropriately.
    • Human Readable URLs: Sitemaps should include URLs with human readable keywords. When scripting, use methods from the SPSEOUtilsSNC class to generate these URLs.

    Templates and guidance are provided within the Script and Static XML fields of the application to help meet these requirements effectively.

    Benefits for ServiceNow Customers

    • Improves SEO by ensuring your public portal pages are accurately indexed by search engines.
    • Reduces manual effort by automating sitemap generation according to SEO best practices.
    • Helps maintain sitemap accuracy by excluding pages that should not be indexed such as restricted, redirected, or NOINDEX pages.
    • Supports SEO features like canonical URLs, localized content, and human readable URLs to enhance search relevance.

    By using the Sitemap Generator, you can effectively boost your portal’s search visibility while adhering to SEO standards.

    Use the ServiceNow® Sitemap Generator application to define and automatically generate XML sitemaps to improve search engine optimization of public portal pages.

    Activation information

    You can activate the Sitemap Generator application (sn_ux_seo_sitemap) from your instance. For more information, see Activate Sitemap Generator.

    You can also activate Sitemap Generator from the ServiceNow Store. Visit the ServiceNow Store website to view all the available apps and for information about submitting requests to the store. For cumulative release notes information for all released apps, see the ServiceNow Store version history release notes.

    Sitemap requirements

    The sitemap is generated from a script or static XML. When creating a sitemap, you must ensure that its contents meet the following requirements because validating them isn’t handled automatically:

    • Includes only pages with unauthenticated user access.

      Sitemap Generator automatically excludes portal URLs that aren’t publicly accessible from sitemaps. However, this doesn’t apply for URLs with custom domains instead of the ServiceNow domain. URLs that are excluded from the sitemap are listed in the Application Log [syslog_app_scope] table.

    • Excludes pages that respond with a 301 redirect.
    • Excludes pages with the NOINDEX meta tag, such as retired or expired pages. If you use a script to create the sitemap, include logic similar to that of the SEO script include you used to add NOINDEX meta tags to pages to exclude those pages from the sitemap. For more information, see Configure custom SEO tags for canonical URLs and localized knowledge articles.
    • For any pages with canonical URLs or hreflang tags, the sitemap includes those canonical URLs or URLs with hreflang tags returned by the SEO script include for that page. If you use a script to create the sitemap, include logic similar to that of the SEO script include you used to return canonical URLs or URLs with hreflang tags. For more information, see SEO for canonical URLs and localized versions of knowledge articles.
    • For any pages with human readable keywords in URLS, the sitemap includes those URLs with human readable keywords. If you use a script to create the sitemap, use one of the getHumanReadableUrl methods in the SPSEOUtilsSNC class to return the human readable keywords and include them in the sitemap URLs. For more information, see Add human readable keywords to page URLs.
    Note:
    Guidance on how to meet these requirements is included in the code templates in the Script and Static XML fields where the sitemap contents are defined. For more information, see Generate XML sitemaps for SEO indexing.
    For more information about sitemap requirements for SEO, refer to the following resources: