Sitemaps, Internal Links & Live URLs

GitCMS can use your site's sitemap to make everyday editing faster.

When your site is configured with a website URL and a working sitemap, GitCMS can:

• suggest internal pages while you add a link
• help match an entry to its live URL
• respect locale-aware paths on multilingual sites

This is especially useful for docs, blogs, and marketing sites where writers often need to cross-link existing pages.

Why GitCMS uses your sitemap

GitCMS does not invent internal URLs. Instead, it reads the pages your site already publishes in its sitemap.

That means link suggestions stay grounded in your real site structure:

• published docs pages
• blog posts
• landing pages
• localized routes

If a page is not in your sitemap yet, GitCMS usually cannot suggest it as an internal link or match it as a live URL.

Set it up in Settings

Open Settings for your site and make sure these values are configured:

• Website URL: your deployed site URL
• Sitemap: your sitemap URL, usually something like https://your-site.com/sitemap.xml

GitCMS will try to discover the sitemap automatically after you enter the website URL. You can also paste or edit the sitemap URL manually if your setup uses a custom location.

If discovery succeeds, GitCMS also shows how many pages were found. That gives you a quick sanity check before writers rely on link suggestions.

Add internal links faster in the editor

When you add or edit a link in the editor, GitCMS can show internal page suggestions from your sitemap.

Instead of copying a URL from another browser tab, writers can:

• search by page title
• search by path
• pick the right page from a short list
• still paste a manual URL when needed

This keeps internal linking fast without asking writers to remember route structures.

Here is the feature in motion:

Live URL matching

GitCMS can also use the sitemap to help connect an entry in the CMS with the matching page on the live site.

When GitCMS can confidently match the current file to a published URL, it can show a quick way to open the live page. This is helpful for:

• checking that the published page looks right
• confirming the correct route
• reviewing the live version of an entry after publishing

Matching is based on the file name, collection context, and sitemap paths, so it works best when your published URLs stay reasonably close to your content structure.

This speed-run shows GitCMS jumping from an entry to its matched live page:

Multilingual sites

On multilingual sites, sitemap-powered features are still useful, but they do not all behave the same way yet.

• Live URL matching can use locale-aware path logic when GitCMS is matching an entry to the published page.
• Internal link suggestions still search across the sitemap pages GitCMS has loaded, so writers should confirm they are choosing the right locale variant when multiple versions of a page exist.

If your default locale is unprefixed, GitCMS still tries to do the right thing for live URL matching between the default locale and prefixed secondary locales.

When to use a manual link instead

Use a manual URL when:

• the target page is not published yet
• the page is intentionally excluded from the sitemap
• the target is external
• your route is generated in a way that does not map cleanly from the content file

GitCMS treats sitemap suggestions as a helper, not a restriction.

Troubleshooting

If internal link suggestions or live URLs are missing:

• confirm your Website URL is correct
• confirm the Sitemap URL is correct and reachable
• make sure the target page actually appears in the sitemap
• re-run sitemap discovery in Settings
• check locale settings if the site is multilingual
• double-check that you picked the correct locale variant when similar pages exist in more than one language

If your site uses a non-standard sitemap location or publishes only part of the site into the sitemap, set the sitemap URL manually and verify the expected pages are included.