Sitemap Validator
Validate your XML sitemap structure, check URL count, and find issues that affect crawling.
What This Tool Checks
Comprehensive validation of your XML sitemap for search engine compatibility.
XML Structure
Validates that your sitemap uses proper XML structure with the correct root element, namespaces, and well-formed URL entries.
URL Count
Counts all URLs in your sitemap and checks against the 50,000 URL limit per file required by the sitemap protocol.
Lastmod Dates
Checks whether your URLs include last modification dates, which help search engines prioritize fresh content for crawling.
Index Detection
Detects sitemap index files that reference multiple sub-sitemaps and lists each one with its last modification date.
Issue Detection
Identifies problems like missing entries, invalid XML, oversized files, and incorrect content types with severity levels.
How It Works
Three simple steps to validate your XML sitemap.
Enter Domain or URL
Type your domain name or a direct sitemap URL. We check robots.txt for a Sitemap directive, then fall back to /sitemap.xml.
Parse & Validate
We fetch the sitemap, parse its XML structure, extract URLs and metadata, and run validation checks against the sitemap protocol.
Review Results
See URL counts, sample entries, sub-sitemaps for indexes, and a list of issues with severity ratings and recommendations.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about XML sitemaps and search engine crawling.
An XML sitemap is a file that lists all the important URLs on your website in a format that search engines can easily read. It helps search engine crawlers discover and index your pages, especially those that might not be found through regular link-based crawling. While not strictly required, sitemaps are strongly recommended by Google, Bing, and other search engines as part of SEO best practices.
A regular sitemap lists individual page URLs with optional metadata like last modification date and change frequency. A sitemap index is a file that references multiple sitemap files. This is useful for large sites with more than 50,000 URLs, since each individual sitemap file is limited to 50,000 URLs and 50MB uncompressed. The sitemap index acts as a table of contents pointing to all your sitemap files.
Your sitemap should be updated whenever you add, remove, or significantly change pages on your site. Many CMS platforms and static site generators automatically regenerate the sitemap on each build or publish. Including accurate lastmod dates helps search engines know which pages have changed and need to be re-crawled, rather than re-crawling your entire site.
No. Your sitemap should include pages you want search engines to index. Exclude pages blocked by robots.txt, noindex pages, duplicate content, paginated archives, and internal search result pages. Focus on your canonical, high-value pages. Search engines treat sitemaps as hints, not commands — they may still discover and index pages not in your sitemap through other links.