XML Sitemap Generator OpenCart for Google

The XML Sitemap Generator for Google module is designed to automatically generate correct sitemaps for Google search engines directly in your OpenCart. It collects URLs from basic page types (categories, products, information pages), takes multilingual support into account, supports the priority and changefreq parameters, and then converts the results into sitemap.xml and sitemap-index.xml files.

Why is it needed?

If your website has many products and categories, manually updating the sitemap is expensive and inconvenient. This module takes care of the tedious work: it builds URLs, groups them into files, adds alternate hreflang for language versions, and checks links for compliance with robots.txt rules. The result is a structure that's easier to submit to Search Console and helps search engines find new pages faster.

What the module can do

During the generation process, the module works with data from the catalog and language settings. It generates and validates URLs, then assembles the XML output.

Main functions

• Generate sitemaps by page types: categories, products, info.
• Category-aware link building: Calculates the category path and uses it in the product URL.
• Multilingual support:
  • the strategy for forming the language in the address is triggered: subdirectories, subdomains or OpenCart SEO mode;
  • Includes xhtml:link rel="alternate" hreflang="..."> if sitemap synchronization mode is enabled.
• Robots.txt control:
  • reads robots.txt;
  • compares each generated URL with the Disallow/Allow rules;
  • Removes a URL from the map if it is banned.
• Splitting product sitemaps into parts for large volumes (to prevent files from becoming "inconvenient" to process).
• Controlling execution time through the max_execution_time setting and the mode for large databases.

What parameters can be configured?

The settings are specified in the module interface and then used when assembling XML.

• Enable/Disable Sitemap Types:
  • categories
  • products
  • info (info pages)
• Priority for each page group:
  • fixed values
  • or auto mode - when the priority is increased with recent changes
  • or off
• Change frequency (always/hourly/daily/weekly/monthly/yearly/never).
• Adding images to sitemap (Google Image sitemap):
  • main image of the category/product
  • additional product images
  • mode: images_as_original (original size) or resized (reduced previews via resized models)
• Dividing products into files using the in_file parameter (number of links in one XML).
• Type of language code formation:
  • sdir (subdirectories site.com/{lang_code}/)
  • sdom (subdomains {lang_code}.site.com/)
  • OpenCart SEO (if language codes are inserted by the SEO module)

Recommendations and application examples

Example 1 (standard online store, 2+ languages): enable products and categories, and set "Multilingual Sync" to the same mode as your website's language generation method. This will ensure alternate hreflangs appear in the sitemap, allowing Google to correctly match language versions.

Example 2 (the SEO module already manages links): select the OpenCart SEO mode in the language generation type. Then the module will try to sync with the URL generation behavior of your SEO component.

Important: If robots.txt contains a Disallow for a section, the corresponding URLs will not be included in the sitemap. This is correct for indexing, but it may explain why you don't see some pages in the XML.

The end result is clear sitemaps for submitting to Google Search Console and more stable directory indexing.