Google Sitemap Generator
Google Sitemap Generator, XML Sitemaps and HTML Sitemaps made easy with this free unlimited tool!
NOTE: This Sitemap Generator has been completely revamped - It's awesome!
It is now part of our Webmaster Tool, simply click on the webmaster tool image to start. Below you will find instructions for creating XML Sitemaps, Google Sitemaps and HTML sitemaps.
* Before you jump into this, you should read everything on this page.
* In order to Generate Sitemaps, you'll need Sun's Java Runtime which is free and located here: http://www.java.com/en/download/manual.jsp
For other parts of the webmaster tool, such as checking your site for invalid links or finding out why it's not ranking well, visit the Webmaster Tools page.
You're probably here to generate a sitemap for your favorite search engine? At one time, Google had it's own sitemap format, Yahoo had their own version and everyone else was trying to catch up. Fortunately, a standard was developed for XML Sitemaps which are now accepted by Google, Yahoo and others.
There is still the traditional html sitemap, and we have taken that into consideration when building the sitemap generator; our webmaster tool provides you with the option to generate a XML sitemap or HTML sitemap – how you export (save) the file is up to you.
Creative website owners have been using sitemaps to get their content recognized by search engines for years; these html sitemaps predate Google and XML site maps. The nice thing about this type of sitemap is that it can be read by humans AND search engines.
To create these older style sitemaps, website owners need only use our program to generate an HTML sitemap, upload that file to their server's root directory (same location as the website's main page) and place a link to that file in their footer (bottom of the website's main page)
XML Sitemaps now the standard
A Google Sitemap (XML Sitemap) and the traditional sitemap differ in a number of ways. The XML sitemap is for made for search engines such as Yahoo, Google and MSN and when viewed by a human, it's not pretty.
The traditional sitemap (HTML Sitemap) is a graphical way to present your website's layout to humans to further aid in their navigation of your site.
If you want the search engines to see your webpages, a XML sitemap is the way to go. You can a Google sitemap (xml sitemap) and standard sitemap (html) running side by side and it will not negativly impact your site.
Why the Sitemap Generator
Google Sitemaps is a service that allows webmasters to submit an XML map of their site containing information such as change frequency, priority, date created and more. Google suggests a great sitemap program to create the site map, but you must have Python in order for it to run. For further reading on Google's program, visit Google Sitemaps FAQ.
I needed a way to accomplish this without installing Python or extra software on my server and Java was the perfect solution!
Free Site Map Builder
This free and easy to use site map builder is fast, efficient and allows you to build sitemaps that can instantly be submitted to Google. The only requirement is a popular browser that supports java, such as Internet Explorer, Firefox and others.
Sitemap Generator Overview
The easy way to create a Google or XML Sitemap is by watching our 60 second Webmaster Tool Video.
It's simple, just enter the website you would like to create a site map under the 'settings' tab, enter filters (if any), select any options (defaults work fine) and click the little green arrow to start crawling. The program will spider your site (nothing to do with spider bites:) and generate a sitemap using the default values, such as thread count of 5, include all files, etc. Care has been used to make sure the crawler does not follow external links :)
If you have a large site, you'll need to increase the memory allocated to the webmaster tool, more about this can be found on our forum and this 60 second video on Increasing Java Memory.
Sitemap Generator Details
This site map generator (now part of the webmaster tool) is loaded with tons of features and consists of six tabs:
'Project' tab - allows you to save and load your sitemap project. This can be very handy when building XML Sitemaps (or any type of sitemap for that matter). An example might be that your site is a few million pages long in size and you have access to a computer for a short period of time. Simply stop the job, save it out and open it later. Note: The project saves out as an XML file - don't confuse this with a XML Sitemap - they are NOT the same.
'Settings' tab - allows you to specify the way your site will be spidered and what will be included in your Google or XML sitemaps.
- Project Name - This will be the name of your project
- URL - The full address (including the http://) of the website you would like to create a Google or XML sitemap from
- Filters - you can tell our tool to include or exclude certain files when building your HTML, Google or XML sitemap. All filters are case sensitive, so if you are trying to exclude .Jpg files, then use *.Jpg, not *.jpg, etc.
- Include Filter - This is a list of path patterns, asterisk (*) wildcard supported, case sensitive. When the sitemap generator / crawler is about to process a website, it is validated against all inclusion patterns. If none have matched then the location will not be processed and will not be included into sitemap. If you leave this area empty, then it is assumed that you want to include everything so that all locations will are processed (provided they conform to the rules listed below.
Example:
/dir1/* - process all files located below (recursively) directory "dir1"
*.html - process all HTML files at any location - Exclude Filter - Patterns included here will be excluded from processing. When the sitemap generator crawls a website, that site is validated against exclusion patterns. If any patterns match, the location will not be processed and included into Google sitemap.
Say that you have a directory located at
http://www.yoursite.com/private/messages.php?voice=112
and you would like to prevent the messages.php from being included on the sitemap, then you would enter the following into the exclude filter
*/private/messages*
Want to exclude everything in the private directory from being included in the sitemap? Enter the following
*/private/*
- Include Filter - This is a list of path patterns, asterisk (*) wildcard supported, case sensitive. When the sitemap generator / crawler is about to process a website, it is validated against all inclusion patterns. If none have matched then the location will not be processed and will not be included into sitemap. If you leave this area empty, then it is assumed that you want to include everything so that all locations will are processed (provided they conform to the rules listed below.
- Rules - Allows you to set rules when creating your XML, HTML or Google Sitemap.
- Load From - Provides you with the option to process files from the entire server and below the initial directory which is specified by URL parameter. For example, if the URL parameter is a server address, this option does not effect the behavior of the google sitemap generator; However, if you enter a directory, say for example http://www.popupcheck.com/news/index.html, only files below /news directory will be processed including any sub directories.
- Respect Robots.txt file - you can tell the sitemap generator to honor this file or to ignore it.
- Respect Meta Robots.txt - you can do as this meta tag instructs or ignore it.
- Respect No Follow - If the sitemap builder finds a link with a no-follow tag, it will ignore or follow it depending on your selection.
- Ignore invalid links - If you find links that try to back up past your root directory, then you can choose to not include this in your sitemaps.
- Exclude images - you can choose not to include images in your XML sitemap (or Google), but you should think hard about this - read my post on Images in Sitemaps
- Download only new files - this works when you have a sitemap project that you have saved out
- Options - Some cool stuff here and can be very important!
- Add skipped links to sitemap - when the webmaster tool crawls your site, it may find bad links. This option allows you to include those in the sitemap anyway.
- User agent - When you spider a site, you leave in the log files the name 'AuditMyPC Webmaster Tool' as the browser type. Some web hosting companies may block a browser if it is making too many requests. You can change the referrer (user agent) to something else by selecting from the drop down or typing it in!
- Max Level - the maximum depth the webmaster tool will dive down to when creating your sitemap. The default is all levels, but if you wanted to set it at 0, then only the root web pages would be found and included in your XML sitemap, if you have something like mysite.com/news/newat11.php then that file would be 1 deep and would not be included.
'Crawler' tab - Set the speed in which the sitemap is generated.
- Request Delay - Our XML sitemap generator works extremely fast, the downside of this is that some internet service providers may find this places a heavy load on the server. If this is the case, then you can place delays between requests.
- Connect Timeout - When building XML sitemaps which encounters pages that don't load or take too long, a timeout can be set.
- Read Timeout - If the spider finds a page that goes on forever, you can specify a timeout for reading that page.
- Transfer Rate - Each thread can transfer web pages at a very fast rate. You can tone that down a bit if necessary, but the default works fine.
- Thread Count - The number of simultaneous crawling threads to run when creating the Google site map. This may significantly decrease overall crawling time if large number of threads are specified but will increase bandwidth usage - so use with caution or just run with the default.
- Once you click on the button, crawling will begin and you'll be presented with status indicators for thread status, uri, values and more. All parameters are self explanatory and 'Finished' will appear once crawling is completed. You may stop the sitemap generation at any time by pressing the 'cancel' button.
'Sitemap' Tab - Contains a ton of information about each page and updates in real time. all the locations / files that have been crawled. Under the 'Sitemap' tab, you have sub-tabs, such as 'save sitemap', 'retry', 'row filter', 'column filter' and 'trees'.
- Export - this is where you decide what type of sitemap you would like to build. You can choose 'URL Raw List', 'Delimited', 'XML File (not for sitemaps)', 'Sitemap XML (For creating sitemaps for Google, Yahoo and others) ', 'HTML Sitemap' and a 'HTML Report'.
- Retry Failed - This option will retry to read pages from the sitemap that had problems on the last run
- Row Filter - When building a sitemap (crawling a site), you can filter out rows based on just about anything you can thing of (see the question mark next to each item for details).
- Column Filter - Save as the Row filter but for Columns.
- Find - This allows you to search your xml sitemap for text.
- You have the option to edit 'Modified', 'Change frequency' and 'Priority' cells for each row (or all rows - well get to that in a moment).
- Listing of URLs (pages) - You'll see a listing of all your webpages that include items like Title, Status, Errors and more.
For the Google sitemap, you can set the 'Change Frequency' and 'Change Priority' for on or multiple urls by highlighting the desired url(s) and right clicking, then choosing your option. You can also delete page from your Google or XML Sitemap by simply highlighting the desired urls and pressing your computer's delete key.
- Change frequency - Tells Google Sitemaps the frequency that content of a particular URL will change. Your options are "always", "hourly", "daily", "weekly", "monthly", "yearly" or "never". The value "always" should be used to describe documents that change each time they are accessed. The value "never" should be used to describe archived URLs.
- Priority - The priority of a particular URL relative to other pages on your site. You may select between 0.0 and 1.0, where 0.0 identifies the lowest priority page(s) on your website and 1.0 identifies the highest priority page(s) on your website.
The URL check, server headers and other parts of the tool are covered on the Webmaster Tools page.
How To Create Google Sitemap
To create a Google Sitemap, simply enter the full address of your website, select any sitemap options and choose 'Start Crawling".
When you have completed the crawling process and status reports finished, then select export under the sitemaps tab and choose Sitemap XML.
Enter the filename you would like the sitemap saved and click save (the default is sitemaps.xml which is fine).
You have now created a Google Compliant Sitemap and saved it to your computer - congratulations!
Now, you need to upload the new sitemap to your website. It seems every hosting company has a different method of doing this, but they are all basically the same:
Think of your sitemap.xml file as any htm (html, php or asp) file that you're going to place on your website.
There is probably some type of import option that your hosting company provides you - use it to move (FTP, Publish, etc) the sitemap.xml file from your computer onto your website. Place it in the same directory that holds the main page for your website.
Submit your Sitemap to Google
The final step is activating your Sitemap. Here's how:
- Log into your Google Sitemaps account by visiting Google Sitemaps Account.
- Click on the "Add a Sitemap" link.
- Enter the URL for your Sitemap in the field, then click the [Submit URL] button.
- Example: The URL for your Sitemap will be your website address, followed by the filename that you uploaded. For example, if I uploaded my 'sitemap.xml' file to my auditmypc.com site, the URL I would give to Google Sitemaps would be http://www.auditmypc.com/sitemap.xml
This will submit your Sitemap to the Google service. It may take Google a few hours to generate reports about your site, so be patient while they work their mojo.
How do I Resubmit my Sitemaps?
Initially, you just uploaded your site map file to your website and told Google the location of the site map. If you make a change, say add or delete information from the sitemap, you need to do the following:
- Generate another sitemap with the same name as the original
- Upload the sitemap file to your server just like before, but this time you will overwrite the original sitemap
- Tell Google you have made a change to the sitemap – you can do this one of two ways:
- A) Sign into Google Sitemaps with your Google account and from the "Sitemaps" tab, select the checkbox beside it and click the "Resubmit Selected" button.
- B) Send Google an HTTP request by typing in a special address into your browser (also know as 'pinging google')
To resubmit your Sitemap using option B (a HTTP request), you simply enter the full location of your sitemap that you provided Google and place it into your browser (but, it must be encoded first! Here is how)
Enter the full address of your sitemap into the form below:
Example http://www.auditmypc.com/sitemap.xml
Click Encode URL
Copy the Encoded result and paste it into your browser's address bar (just like you would any website address).
Sitemap Encoder
Encoded Sitemap
Once you have entered the encoded sitemap address into your browser and pressed enter (or Go, etc), you'll receive a screen message from google telling you it has your information; Bookmark the address before you close it and next time you update your sitemap, just visit the bookmark. This saves you from having to go through this process again!
Encode your Google Sitemap
Although the form above encodes your sitemap url for you, you may be curious how exactly it works or want to manually encode your sitemap address.
As an example, if your Google Site Map is located at http://www.auditmypc.com/sitemap.htm, you'll enter the following website address into your browser:
www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/ping?sitemap=http://www.auditmypc.com/sitemap.htm
but, google asks that you encode the URL first.
You must URL Encode everything after the /ping?sitemap=
So, you'll actually enter:
www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/ping?sitemap=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.auditmypc.com%2Fsitemap.htm
Notice how the '/' became '%3a', that's the hexadecimal representation of ':'. It's easier to just use the form on this page to encode your sitemap location :)
In Summary, take the address of your sitemap, enter it into the 'Site Map Location' area above and press 'Encode URL' button. Append the encoded result to the end of google sitemap url like this:
http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/ping?sitemap=[encoded result]
To decode a Google Site Map address, simply enter the encoded url into the 'Encoded Result' and press Decode URL
For more detail on how to resubmit the Google Sitemap, simply visit Google Sitemap.
Yahoo Sitemap Generator
Yahoo also has a sitemap program that allows you to submit a list of your webpages to Yahoo!
Create a Yahoo Sitemap xml file using our webmaster tool.
Use Yahoo Sitemap XML files to make sure that all your web pages are indexed by Yahoo. This can be done by creating a single xml file containing your sitemap. XML Sitemaps for Yahoo is a free service and easy to do.
To create your XML Sitemap file follow these steps:
- Create the sitemap as normal using our Sitemap Generator (webmaster tool)
- Click the 'Save Sitemap' tab located under the 'Sitemap' tab
- Select 'Sitemap XML' to save it out as the name you would like and then upload the sitemap to your website
- Submit your XML File to http://submit.search.yahoo.com/free/request
To use Yahoo Sitemaps, you will need a Yahoo account which is free. Then, add your website under 'My Sites'. Once in 'My Sites', click manage and add your Yahoo XML sitemap file that you just created.
You can provide Yahoo Sitemaps with a feed in the many formats other than XML (stick with XML).
- RSS 0.9, RSS 1.0 or RSS 2.0, for example, CNN Top Stories
- Sitemaps, as documented on www.sitemaps.org
- Atom 0.3, Atom 1.0, for example, Yahoo! Search Blog
- A text file containing a list of URLs, each URL at the start of a new line. The filename of the URL list file must be urllist.txt; for a compressed file the name must be urllist.txt.gz.
Yahoo Sitemaps is easy and a great way to get indexed on this search engine!
Top Sitemap Builder Suggestions
Suggestions (Thank You!) from users that have been using the Sitemap Generator and that have been incorporated into the application include:
- Make XML Sitemaps for Yahoo Sitemaps, MSN and others.
- Add a Google Sitemap URL Encoder / Decoder to help submit sitemaps.
- Make the URL list sortable by clicking the column title. When generating a site map for larger sites, it can become overwhelming.
- The ability to save your settings when you create a sitemap. The next time you generate a sitemap, you'll be able to refer to these settings.
- Include in the sitemap program the ability to honor robots.txt files. When a site map is created, the program will look at its own filters first and then look at the website's robots.txt file if the option is selected.
- Include in the sitemap builder the ability to honor meta tag robot rules. When a site map is generated, the program will look at its own filters first and then look at the website's robots.txt file and meta tag if the options are selected.
I want to thank everyone who has taken the time to suggest improvements!
Version history is included below.
Sitemap Bugs and Fixes
The current version is v1.2 realesed on 9/21/07. Major items fixed include supporting non-standard characters, updated Google Sitemap code and increased browser compatability with less popular browsers.
We provide free support on our Sitemap Generator Support Forum.
May 2007 - v1.1 Updated the sitemap generator so that when you export (save) your sitemap, it is in a format that is accepted by Google Sitemaps, Yahoo Sitemaps and other engines.
Feb 2006 - Sitemap Generator has been renamed to the AuditMyPC.com Webmaster Tool and is now at version 1.0. This new tool replaces the older sitemap generator and includes the ability to check sites for errors, server headers, XML sitemaps, and much more. If you select stay informed from the menu to your left, you'll be able to use this tool on your site. Those not on the list will still be able to use the old tool.
June 9th, 2006 - Latest Sitemap Generator update is now at version v2.32. Fixed a case sensitive issue that could cause some internal pages not to be recognized. Fixed a 'time out' problem where the site map generator would not stop or just hang.
May 19th, 2006 - Version 2.3 - Performance issues such as speed and calculations made.
May 18th, 2006 - Fixed a 'case' issue with the sitemap generator that would see urls with mixed case as different from urls with straight case. For example, if you entered AuditMyPC.com and the site has links pointing to auditmypc.com/firewalltest.asp, it would be considered and external link and excluded from the sitemap builder.
March 28th, 2006 - Version 1.7 released;
- This version gives you the ability to look for and respect the rel='nofollow' tag. This tag is used to tell robots not to follow the link. The sitemap generator will now look for this tag and if found, will not include it when building a sitemap.
- In rare configurations of the robots.txt file, the sitemap generator would not catch some entries.
- Speed - enhancements to the speed at which generating sitemaps has been made and will also play a big part in the next major sitemap update.
December 1st, 2005 - Version 1.6 updated; when reading the robots.txt file, upper and lower case could cause a problem when building a sitemap. The sitemap generator is now case insensitive. Problem fixed.
October 28th, 2005 - Version 1.6 released; corrected a small bug that looks at a robots.txt file when generating a sitemap and if it sees 'disallow:', treats the command as disallow all. Although many people that generated sitemaps did not have this type of configuration, it forced the user to uncheck the 'Follow robots.txt rule'.
September 23rd, 2005 - Version 1.5 released; this addressed speed issues when building a sitemap.
September 14th, 2005 - Version 1.4 released; no bugs, site map cosmetic enhancements.
September 8th, 2005 - Fixed a bug where the sitemap generator would hang if spaces were found in the url.
July 27th, 2005 - Version 1.3 of Google Sitemap
- Version 1.3 of the site map generator sports an entirely new skin, is more compact, has improved code and fixes a number of small bugs.
- One of the biggest requests by users was greater detail when errors were discovered. If your website has any errors you will now have the ability to see exactly what caused the error when attempting to build a site map.
- The number of invalid pages is easily identifiable. Each sitemap error can be expanded to see all related pages that point to that particular problem. You also have the ability to cut and paste Google Sitemap errors.
July 24th, 2005 - Updated site map submission instructions.
June 16th, 2005 - Identified and Fixed:
- Drop downs appeared to be missing from the sitemap creator when the user changed format from 'Plain' and then switched back to 'XML' format.
- Sometimes crawling startup failed when trying to generate a Google Sitemap.
- When creating a Google sitemap from a website that contains more than 4,000 pages, the applet started to consume more system resources. The sitemap creator now supports up to 50,000 pages!
- Added the ability to resize the site map applet to fit different size monitors.
June 15th, 2005 - Identified and fixed bug that when crawling over 3000 URLs, the Sitemap Generator would eventually drop down to one thread and may stop creating a sitemap entirely.
Google Site Map Generator v2
This version was RETIRED on 1/24/07 and was a major revision which included new features such as improved performance, the ability to ignore invalid relative links, ability to load from anywhere, max level, delay between requests, and the ability to save errors!
One of the most important and requested features have been the ability to regulate the speed with which the Google Sitemap Generator crawls a site. It's possible that some website hosting companies may view multiple requests in a short period of time as hostile; this could result in the sitemap not being generated correctly.
You now have the ability to place a value in seconds so that sitemap building requests are spaced out over time and more friendly.
We found a large number of sites have invalid links, such as../ rather than ./ which can create additional pages when combined with rewrites. Many of the users experiencing this problem thought it was our sitemap builder creating extra pages and was not aware it's actually a coding error on their site. Those users now have the ability to ignore these errors when building their Google Site Map.
We recommend you run the program without checking the 'Ignore invalid links' option to catch any errors. If our Google sitemap creator sees the file, so will the bots - it's a great way to make sure you're not generating duplicate content!
Another popular request was the ability to restrict the sitemap creator from going beyond (x) levels deep. For example, building a sitemap with a max level of 3 would go down three directories deep and ignore the rest of the sub directories.
By far the most requested enhancement is the ability to save out errors that have been reported when you build a site map. Site Map errors can now be saved so that you can review them later or work on them as time permits.
To access the new version of our free site map generator, simply click on our webmaster tool icon at the top of this page and you can start building your XML sitemap in minutes.
Sitemap Generator Support
Support for our Sitemap Builder can now be found on the Sitemap Generator page of our Forum. Listed below are some questions that may still be valid.
One of the major advantages of using this tool is that owners of websites find errors they never knew existed on their sites! These errors most often prevent sites from being indexed by Google, Yahoo MSN and others! Once fixed, site owners usually notice a major increase in search engine traffic!
It starts off with trying to make a sitemap for Google and discovering that the sitemap generator simply stops at the main page and doesn't find other pages within the site.
It is this very problem that people often write to me about. Almost always, after reviewing their site, I discover web pages that are missing beginning or ending tags, such as html, head and body tags.
I also discover that a large number of site owners are accidentally blocking robots from visiting their page. In the sitemap builder, you'll notice that there is an option to honor robots.txt files and no follow tags.
If you're having a problem with the sitemap builder and your page is formatted correctly, try deselecting the robots and no follow options. If this works, then the problem is with one of these items.
Every attempt has been made to make our webmaster tool behave as the search engine robots do when spidering a site. There are standards that each search engine subscribes to when reading websites and we subscribe to that same data. The point is, if we catch the errors, it's a very real possibility that the search engines will also.
A perfect example would be a hosting company blocking our spider because it's going to fast - chances are, the hosting provider is also doing this to the search engine robots and could be preventing them from seeing your entire site (which could lead to poor ratings). - See changing user agent above for solutions to this problem.
Creating a Sitemap - Common Questions
* Support for our XML Sitemaps and other site maps is now located on our forum.
Question: I have created a sitemap and it includes files that I want hidden from Yahoo and Google. If I take them out of the sitemap, then the search engines won't see them, correct?
Answer: Wrong – If the sitemap builder finds these pages that you want hidden, so will Yahoo, Google and other search engines. Sure, you can exclude them from the sitemap, but the problem is that you have links on your site to these files you want hidden.
You need to exclude them in your robots.txt file. My sitemap builder will respect the robots.txt file (obey it), just like the search engines and prevent them from being included in the site map.
Common Sitemap Builder Problems
* Our sitemap forum has up to date problems and solutions, the ones listed below are dated but still apply
Problem: You enter your website address and nothing happens.
Solution: Is that really your website's main page? For example, you might have entered http://www.mysite.com as the address, but if you type this in the browser and you end up at http://www.mysite.com/main/index.shtm, then you have a landing page that is different than your website address.
In this case, you would enter http://www.mysite.com/main/index.shtm as the site address.
Problem: I want to exclude images and css files.
Solution: enter the following in the exclude area:
*.jpg
*.bmp
*.gif
*.css
Problem: Site Map Generation slows down after 20,000 pages
Solution: Some webmasters have noticed that during a crawl of a very large site, the sitemap generator may slow down after spidering about 14,000 urls. This can happen if the site is heavily nested or has a complex linking structure.
People who experience this lag usually have rapid applet memory consumption and need to increase the amount. The site map builder by default is limited to 50-100m which can quickly be consumed on a complex web site.
To solve this problem, you can increase the amount of memory used by the site map builder. Simply navigate to the control panel and click on the Java Icon. Then, inside the Java Control Panel, click on the Java Tab, Java Applet Runtime Settings, View and then in the Java Runtime Parameters cell, enter '-Xmx256m'.
You can take it a step further when building a sitemap (if you're still having problems) and enter '-Xmx512m'.
Problem: You enter your website address and the site map builder stops immediately.
Solution: This is caused because your main page is redirected to another page (landing page). For example, you may have yoursite.com being redirected to yoursite.com/sales/products/sindex.htm
If this happens to you, simply enter your website address into your browser and notice where you are redirected to; take that redirected website address and enter it into the sitemap generator.
In the example I used above, you would enter:
yoursite.com/sales/products/sindex.htm
into the sitemap generator.
Problem: The sitemap generator misses a few or many files.
Solution: If you are having problems building a sitemap, it may be due to your Robots.txt file or your Metatag. Try unchecking the Follow robots.txt rules and/ or meta name robots rules.
Problem: I can't see the webmaster tool graphic button, so I can't start the test.
Solution: If that's the case, then your browser settings may be preventing sitemap generation.
In IE, look under Tools, Internet Options, Security, Custom Level, Scripting of Java applets and choose prompt. Active scripting should be enabled as well.
In Firefox, look under tools, options, web features and make sure the Enable Java and JavaScript is selected.
If after trying these you still have a problem, please let me know and I will do my best to get you up and running.
Problem: Google Sitemap Invalid Date Error Message
Solution: If you get an 'invalid date' when you submit your sitemap, check to make sure that the time in not in the future. A common mistake is to not to account for daylight savings when creating the sitemap, so make sure you use the time zone for your server and not the local timezone.
Note: This sitemap generator runs on your PC and not the server.
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