sitemaps.txt

=====================
The sitemap framework
=====================

.. module:: django.contrib.sitemaps
   :synopsis: A framework for generating Google sitemap XML files.

Django comes with a high-level sitemap-generating framework to create sitemap_
XML files.

.. _sitemap: https://www.sitemaps.org/

Overview
========

A sitemap is an XML file on your website that tells search-engine indexers how
frequently your pages change and how "important" certain pages are in relation
to other pages on your site. This information helps search engines index your
site.

The Django sitemap framework automates the creation of this XML file by letting
you express this information in Python code.

It works much like Django's :doc:`syndication framework
</ref/contrib/syndication>`. To create a sitemap, write a
:class:`~django.contrib.sitemaps.Sitemap` class and point to it in your
:doc:`URLconf </topics/http/urls>`.

Installation
============

To install the sitemap app, follow these steps:

#. Add ``'django.contrib.sitemaps'`` to your :setting:`INSTALLED_APPS` setting.

#. Make sure your :setting:`TEMPLATES` setting contains a ``DjangoTemplates``
   backend whose ``APP_DIRS`` options is set to ``True``. It's in there by
   default, so you'll only need to change this if you've changed that setting.

#. Make sure you've installed the :mod:`sites framework<django.contrib.sites>`.

(Note: The sitemap application doesn't install any database tables. The only
reason it needs to go into :setting:`INSTALLED_APPS` is so that the
:func:`~django.template.loaders.app_directories.Loader` template
loader can find the default templates.)

Initialization
==============

.. function:: views.sitemap(request, sitemaps, section=None, template_name='sitemap.xml', content_type='application/xml')

To activate sitemap generation on your Django site, add this line to your
:doc:`URLconf </topics/http/urls>`::

    from django.contrib.sitemaps.views import sitemap

    path('sitemap.xml', sitemap, {'sitemaps': sitemaps},
         name='django.contrib.sitemaps.views.sitemap')

This tells Django to build a sitemap when a client accesses :file:`/sitemap.xml`.

The name of the sitemap file is not important, but the location is. Search
engines will only index links in your sitemap for the current URL level and
below. For instance, if :file:`sitemap.xml` lives in your root directory, it may
reference any URL in your site. However, if your sitemap lives at
:file:`/content/sitemap.xml`, it may only reference URLs that begin with
:file:`/content/`.

The sitemap view takes an extra, required argument: ``{'sitemaps': sitemaps}``.
``sitemaps`` should be a dictionary that maps a short section label (e.g.,
``blog`` or ``news``) to its :class:`~django.contrib.sitemaps.Sitemap` class
(e.g., ``BlogSitemap`` or ``NewsSitemap``). It may also map to an *instance* of
a :class:`~django.contrib.sitemaps.Sitemap` class (e.g.,
``BlogSitemap(some_var)``).

``Sitemap`` classes
===================

A :class:`~django.contrib.sitemaps.Sitemap` class is a Python class that
represents a "section" of entries in your sitemap. For example, one
:class:`~django.contrib.sitemaps.Sitemap` class could represent all the entries
of your Weblog, while another could represent all of the events in your events
calendar.

In the simplest case, all these sections get lumped together into one
:file:`sitemap.xml`, but it's also possible to use the framework to generate a
sitemap index that references individual sitemap files, one per section. (See
`Creating a sitemap index`_ below.)

:class:`~django.contrib.sitemaps.Sitemap` classes must subclass
``django.contrib.sitemaps.Sitemap``. They can live anywhere in your codebase.

An example
==========

Let's assume you have a blog system, with an ``Entry`` model, and you want your
sitemap to include all the links to your individual blog entries. Here's how
your sitemap class might look::

    from django.contrib.sitemaps import Sitemap
    from blog.models import Entry

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

        def items(self):
            return Entry.objects.filter(is_draft=False)

        def lastmod(self, obj):
            return obj.pub_date

Note:

* :attr:`~Sitemap.changefreq` and :attr:`~Sitemap.priority` are class
  attributes corresponding to ``<changefreq>`` and ``<priority>`` elements,
  respectively. They can be made callable as functions, as
  :attr:`~Sitemap.lastmod` was in the example.
* :attr:`~Sitemap.items()` is a method that returns a :term:`sequence` or
  ``QuerySet`` of objects. The objects returned will get passed to any callable
  methods corresponding to a sitemap property (:attr:`~Sitemap.location`,
  :attr:`~Sitemap.lastmod`, :attr:`~Sitemap.changefreq`, and
  :attr:`~Sitemap.priority`).
* :attr:`~Sitemap.lastmod` should return a :class:`~datetime.datetime`.
* There is no :attr:`~Sitemap.location` method in this example, but you
  can provide it in order to specify the URL for your object. By default,
  :attr:`~Sitemap.location()` calls ``get_absolute_url()`` on each object
  and returns the result.

``Sitemap`` class reference
===========================

.. class:: Sitemap

    A ``Sitemap`` class can define the following methods/attributes:

    .. attribute:: Sitemap.items

        **Required.** A method that returns a :term:`sequence` or ``QuerySet``
        of objects. The framework doesn't care what *type* of objects they are;
        all that matters is that these objects get passed to the
        :attr:`~Sitemap.location()`, :attr:`~Sitemap.lastmod()`,
        :attr:`~Sitemap.changefreq()` and :attr:`~Sitemap.priority()` methods.

    .. attribute:: Sitemap.location

        **Optional.** Either a method or attribute.

        If it's a method, it should return the absolute path for a given object
        as returned by :attr:`~Sitemap.items()`.

        If it's an attribute, its value should be a string representing an
        absolute path to use for *every* object returned by
        :attr:`~Sitemap.items()`.

        In both cases, "absolute path" means a URL that doesn't include the
        protocol or domain. Examples:

        * Good: :file:`'/foo/bar/'`
        * Bad: :file:`'example.com/foo/bar/'`
        * Bad: :file:`'https://example.com/foo/bar/'`

        If :attr:`~Sitemap.location` isn't provided, the framework will call
        the ``get_absolute_url()`` method on each object as returned by
        :attr:`~Sitemap.items()`.

        To specify a protocol other than ``'http'``, use
        :attr:`~Sitemap.protocol`.

    .. attribute:: Sitemap.lastmod

        **Optional.** Either a method or attribute.

        If it's a method, it should take one argument -- an object as returned
        by :attr:`~Sitemap.items()` -- and return that object's last-modified
        date/time as a :class:`~datetime.datetime`.

        If it's an attribute, its value should be a :class:`~datetime.datetime`
        representing the last-modified date/time for *every* object returned by
        :attr:`~Sitemap.items()`.

        If all items in a sitemap have a :attr:`~Sitemap.lastmod`, the sitemap
        generated by :func:`views.sitemap` will have a ``Last-Modified``
        header equal to the latest ``lastmod``. You can activate the
        :class:`~django.middleware.http.ConditionalGetMiddleware` to make
        Django respond appropriately to requests with an ``If-Modified-Since``
        header which will prevent sending the sitemap if it hasn't changed.

    .. attribute:: Sitemap.changefreq

        **Optional.** Either a method or attribute.

        If it's a method, it should take one argument -- an object as returned
        by :attr:`~Sitemap.items()` -- and return that object's change
        frequency as a string.

        If it's an attribute, its value should be a string representing the
        change frequency of *every* object returned by :attr:`~Sitemap.items()`.

        Possible values for :attr:`~Sitemap.changefreq`, whether you use a
        method or attribute, are:

        * ``'always'``
        * ``'hourly'``
        * ``'daily'``
        * ``'weekly'``
        * ``'monthly'``
        * ``'yearly'``
        * ``'never'``

    .. attribute:: Sitemap.priority

        **Optional.** Either a method or attribute.

        If it's a method, it should take one argument -- an object as returned
        by :attr:`~Sitemap.items()` -- and return that object's priority as
        either a string or float.

        If it's an attribute, its value should be either a string or float
        representing the priority of *every* object returned by
        :attr:`~Sitemap.items()`.

        Example values for :attr:`~Sitemap.priority`: ``0.4``, ``1.0``. The
        default priority of a page is ``0.5``. See the `sitemaps.org
        documentation`_ for more.

        .. _sitemaps.org documentation: https://www.sitemaps.org/protocol.html#prioritydef

    .. attribute:: Sitemap.protocol

        **Optional.**

        This attribute defines the protocol (``'http'`` or ``'https'``) of the
        URLs in the sitemap. If it isn't set, the protocol with which the
        sitemap was requested is used. If the sitemap is built outside the
        context of a request, the default is ``'http'``.

    .. attribute:: Sitemap.limit

        **Optional.**

        This attribute defines the maximum number of URLs included on each page
        of the sitemap. Its value should not exceed the default value of
        ``50000``, which is the upper limit allowed in the `Sitemaps protocol
        <https://www.sitemaps.org/protocol.html#index>`_.

    .. attribute:: Sitemap.i18n

        **Optional.**

        A boolean attribute that defines if the URLs of this sitemap should
        be generated using all of your :setting:`LANGUAGES`. The default is
        ``False``.

    .. attribute:: Sitemap.languages

        .. versionadded:: 3.2

        **Optional.**

        A :term:`sequence` of :term:`language codes<language code>` to use for
        generating alternate links when :attr:`~Sitemap.i18n` is enabled.
        Defaults to :setting:`LANGUAGES`.

    .. attribute:: Sitemap.alternates

        .. versionadded:: 3.2

        **Optional.**

        A boolean attribute. When used in conjunction with
        :attr:`~Sitemap.i18n` generated URLs will each have a list of alternate
        links pointing to other language versions using the `hreflang
        attribute`_. The default is ``False``.

        .. _hreflang attribute: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/crawling/localized-versions

    .. attribute:: Sitemap.x_default

        .. versionadded:: 3.2

        **Optional.**

        A boolean attribute. When ``True`` the alternate links generated by
        :attr:`~Sitemap.alternates` will contain a ``hreflang="x-default"``
        fallback entry with a value of :setting:`LANGUAGE_CODE`. The default is
        ``False``.

Shortcuts
=========

The sitemap framework provides a convenience class for a common case:

.. class:: GenericSitemap(info_dict, priority=None, changefreq=None, protocol=None)

    The :class:`django.contrib.sitemaps.GenericSitemap` class allows you to
    create a sitemap by passing it a dictionary which has to contain at least
    a ``queryset`` entry. This queryset will be used to generate the items
    of the sitemap. It may also have a ``date_field`` entry that
    specifies a date field for objects retrieved from the ``queryset``.
    This will be used for the :attr:`~Sitemap.lastmod` attribute in the
    generated sitemap.

    The :attr:`~Sitemap.priority`, :attr:`~Sitemap.changefreq`,
    and :attr:`~Sitemap.protocol` keyword arguments allow specifying these
    attributes for all URLs.

Example
-------

Here's an example of a :doc:`URLconf </topics/http/urls>` using
:class:`GenericSitemap`::

    from django.contrib.sitemaps import GenericSitemap
    from django.contrib.sitemaps.views import sitemap
    from django.urls import path
    from blog.models import Entry

    info_dict = {
        'queryset': Entry.objects.all(),
        'date_field': 'pub_date',
    }

    urlpatterns = [
        # some generic view using info_dict
        # ...

        # the sitemap
        path('sitemap.xml', sitemap,
             {'sitemaps': {'blog': GenericSitemap(info_dict, priority=0.6)}},
             name='django.contrib.sitemaps.views.sitemap'),
    ]

.. _URLconf: ../url_dispatch/

Sitemap for static views
========================

Often you want the search engine crawlers to index views which are neither
object detail pages nor flatpages. The solution is to explicitly list URL
names for these views in ``items`` and call :func:`~django.urls.reverse` in
the ``location`` method of the sitemap. For example::

    # sitemaps.py
    from django.contrib import sitemaps
    from django.urls import reverse

    class StaticViewSitemap(sitemaps.Sitemap):
        priority = 0.5
        changefreq = 'daily'

        def items(self):
            return ['main', 'about', 'license']

        def location(self, item):
            return reverse(item)

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

    from .sitemaps import StaticViewSitemap
    from . import views

    sitemaps = {
        'static': StaticViewSitemap,
    }

    urlpatterns = [
        path('', views.main, name='main'),
        path('about/', views.about, name='about'),
        path('license/', views.license, name='license'),
        # ...
        path('sitemap.xml', sitemap, {'sitemaps': sitemaps},
             name='django.contrib.sitemaps.views.sitemap')
    ]


Creating a sitemap index
========================

.. function:: views.index(request, sitemaps, template_name='sitemap_index.xml', content_type='application/xml', sitemap_url_name='django.contrib.sitemaps.views.sitemap')

The sitemap framework also has the ability to create a sitemap index that
references individual sitemap files, one per each section defined in your
``sitemaps`` dictionary. The only differences in usage are:

* You use two views in your URLconf: :func:`django.contrib.sitemaps.views.index`
  and :func:`django.contrib.sitemaps.views.sitemap`.
* The :func:`django.contrib.sitemaps.views.sitemap` view should take a
  ``section`` keyword argument.

Here's what the relevant URLconf lines would look like for the example above::

    from django.contrib.sitemaps import views

    urlpatterns = [
        path('sitemap.xml', views.index, {'sitemaps': sitemaps}),
        path('sitemap-<section>.xml', views.sitemap, {'sitemaps': sitemaps},
             name='django.contrib.sitemaps.views.sitemap'),
    ]

This will automatically generate a :file:`sitemap.xml` file that references
both :file:`sitemap-flatpages.xml` and :file:`sitemap-blog.xml`. The
:class:`~django.contrib.sitemaps.Sitemap` classes and the ``sitemaps``
dict don't change at all.

You should create an index file if one of your sitemaps has more than 50,000
URLs. In this case, Django will automatically paginate the sitemap, and the
index will reflect that.

If you're not using the vanilla sitemap view -- for example, if it's wrapped
with a caching decorator -- you must name your sitemap view and pass
``sitemap_url_name`` to the index view::

    from django.contrib.sitemaps import views as sitemaps_views
    from django.views.decorators.cache import cache_page

    urlpatterns = [
        path('sitemap.xml',
             cache_page(86400)(sitemaps_views.index),
             {'sitemaps': sitemaps, 'sitemap_url_name': 'sitemaps'}),
        path('sitemap-<section>.xml',
             cache_page(86400)(sitemaps_views.sitemap),
             {'sitemaps': sitemaps}, name='sitemaps'),
    ]


Template customization
======================

If you wish to use a different template for each sitemap or sitemap index
available on your site, you may specify it by passing a ``template_name``
parameter to the ``sitemap`` and ``index`` views via the URLconf::

    from django.contrib.sitemaps import views

    urlpatterns = [
        path('custom-sitemap.xml', views.index, {
            'sitemaps': sitemaps,
            'template_name': 'custom_sitemap.html'
        }),
        path('custom-sitemap-<section>.xml', views.sitemap, {
            'sitemaps': sitemaps,
            'template_name': 'custom_sitemap.html'
        }, name='django.contrib.sitemaps.views.sitemap'),
    ]


These views return :class:`~django.template.response.TemplateResponse`
instances which allow you to easily customize the response data before
rendering. For more details, see the :doc:`TemplateResponse documentation
</ref/template-response>`.

Context variables
-----------------

When customizing the templates for the
:func:`~django.contrib.sitemaps.views.index` and
:func:`~django.contrib.sitemaps.views.sitemap` views, you can rely on the
following context variables.

Index
-----

The variable ``sitemaps`` is a list of absolute URLs to each of the sitemaps.

Sitemap
-------

The variable ``urlset`` is a list of URLs that should appear in the
sitemap. Each URL exposes attributes as defined in the
:class:`~django.contrib.sitemaps.Sitemap` class:

- ``alternates``
- ``changefreq``
- ``item``
- ``lastmod``
- ``location``
- ``priority``

The ``alternates`` attribute is available when :attr:`~Sitemap.i18n` and
:attr:`~Sitemap.alternates` are enabled. It is a list of other language
versions, including the optional :attr:`~Sitemap.x_default` fallback, for each
URL. Each alternate is a dictionary with ``location`` and ``lang_code`` keys.

.. versionchanged:: 3.2

    The ``alternates`` attribute was added.

The ``item`` attribute has been added for each URL to allow more flexible
customization of the templates, such as `Google news sitemaps`_. Assuming
Sitemap's :attr:`~Sitemap.items()` would return a list of items with
``publication_data`` and a ``tags`` field something like this would
generate a Google News compatible sitemap:

.. code-block:: xml+django

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
    <urlset
      xmlns="https://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9"
      xmlns:news="http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap-news/0.9">
    {% spaceless %}
    {% for url in urlset %}
      <url>
        <loc>{{ url.location }}</loc>
        {% if url.lastmod %}<lastmod>{{ url.lastmod|date:"Y-m-d" }}</lastmod>{% endif %}
        {% if url.changefreq %}<changefreq>{{ url.changefreq }}</changefreq>{% endif %}
        {% if url.priority %}<priority>{{ url.priority }}</priority>{% endif %}
        <news:news>
          {% if url.item.publication_date %}<news:publication_date>{{ url.item.publication_date|date:"Y-m-d" }}</news:publication_date>{% endif %}
          {% if url.item.tags %}<news:keywords>{{ url.item.tags }}</news:keywords>{% endif %}
        </news:news>
       </url>
    {% endfor %}
    {% endspaceless %}
    </urlset>

.. _`Google news sitemaps`: https://support.google.com/news/publisher-center/answer/9606710

Pinging Google
==============

You may want to "ping" Google when your sitemap changes, to let it know to
reindex your site. The sitemaps framework provides a function to do just
that: :func:`django.contrib.sitemaps.ping_google()`.

.. function:: ping_google(sitemap_url=None, ping_url=PING_URL, sitemap_uses_https=True)

    ``ping_google`` takes these optional arguments:

    * ``sitemap_url`` - The absolute path to your site's sitemap (e.g.,
      :file:`'/sitemap.xml'`). If this argument isn't provided, ``ping_google``
      will attempt to figure out your sitemap by performing a reverse lookup in
      your URLconf.

    * ``ping_url`` - Defaults to Google's Ping Tool:
      https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/ping.

    * ``sitemap_uses_https`` - Set to ``False`` if your site uses ``http``
      rather than ``https``.

    :func:`ping_google` raises the exception
    ``django.contrib.sitemaps.SitemapNotFound`` if it cannot determine your
    sitemap URL.

.. admonition:: Register with Google first!

    The :func:`ping_google` command only works if you have registered your
    site with `Google Search Console`_.

.. _`Google Search Console`: https://search.google.com/search-console/welcome

One useful way to call :func:`ping_google` is from a model's ``save()``
method::

    from django.contrib.sitemaps import ping_google

    class Entry(models.Model):
        # ...
        def save(self, force_insert=False, force_update=False):
            super().save(force_insert, force_update)
            try:
                ping_google()
            except Exception:
                # Bare 'except' because we could get a variety
                # of HTTP-related exceptions.
                pass

A more efficient solution, however, would be to call :func:`ping_google` from a
cron script, or some other scheduled task. The function makes an HTTP request
to Google's servers, so you may not want to introduce that network overhead
each time you call ``save()``.

Pinging Google via ``manage.py``
--------------------------------

.. django-admin:: ping_google [sitemap_url]

Once the sitemaps application is added to your project, you may also
ping Google using the ``ping_google`` management command::

    python manage.py ping_google [/sitemap.xml]

.. django-admin-option:: --sitemap-uses-http

Use this option if your sitemap uses ``http`` rather than ``https``.