How to use the Sitemap Validator
- Enter your domain — the validator finds the sitemap from robots.txt or common locations — or paste the full URL of a specific sitemap.
- Keep Check status of URLs ticked to test whether the first 50 listed pages return 200.
- Click Validate sitemap and review the checks: anything in red or amber needs attention.
- For a sitemap index, click Validate next to a child sitemap to inspect it, and use Export URLs to download the full list as CSV.
What is an XML sitemap validator?
An XML sitemap lists the URLs you want search engines to crawl and index, optionally with the date each was last modified. A validator downloads the sitemap, checks that it is well-formed and follows the sitemaps protocol, and — most importantly — checks the quality of what’s inside: a sitemap full of redirects, 404s or URLs from another domain sends search engines mixed signals.
What this validator checks
- Discovery: whether the sitemap is declared in robots.txt with a
Sitemap:line, or only found at a default location. - Structure: regular URL set or sitemap index, number of URLs and child sitemaps.
- Limits: no more than 50,000 URLs and 50 MB (uncompressed) per sitemap file.
- Content: duplicate URLs, URLs on a different host, non-HTTPS URLs, lastmod coverage, invalid or future lastmod dates.
- Status: the HTTP response of the first 50 URLs — every listed URL should return 200 directly, not redirect or fail.
Sitemap rules at a glance
| Rule | Requirement |
|---|---|
| Size | Max 50,000 URLs and 50 MB uncompressed per file; split larger sites with a sitemap index |
| URLs | Absolute, fully qualified, on the same host as the sitemap (unless cross-submission is verified) |
| Encoding | UTF-8, with &, < and > escaped in URLs |
lastmod | W3C datetime, e.g. 2026-10-25 or 2026-10-25T09:30:00+00:00 |
changefreq, priority | Optional — Google ignores both |
What belongs in a sitemap
Only canonical, indexable pages that return 200: no redirects, no 404s, no pages with noindex, no URLs whose canonical tag points elsewhere, and nothing blocked by robots.txt. Google uses lastmod when it is consistently accurate, so set it to the date of the last meaningful content change — not the time the sitemap was generated.
How to submit your sitemap
Add Sitemap: https://www.example.com/sitemap.xml to your robots.txt so every crawler can find it, and submit it in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools to see processing errors and index coverage. No sitemap yet? Create one with the Sitemap Generator.
Tools that pair well with the Sitemap Validator
- Robots.txt Tester — Check whether a URL is allowed or blocked for Googlebot, Bingbot, GPTBot and other crawlers, see exactly which rule matched, and edit the file to test changes before you deploy them.
- Broken Link Checker — Enter a page URL and every link on it — plus images, scripts and stylesheets if you like — is tested live, so you can fix 404s and redirect hops before visitors or Google run into them.
- SEO Checker & Site Audit — Paste a URL to run up to 70 on-page SEO checks in seconds.
- Meta Tag Checker — See exactly how Google is likely to display your page: title and description measured in pixels, desktop and mobile previews, and every meta tag in the <head>.
Frequently asked questions
Where is my sitemap?
/sitemap.xml or /sitemap_index.xml, and ideally declared in robots.txt. Webflow, Shopify and Wix create /sitemap.xml automatically; WordPress uses /wp-sitemap.xml or a plugin’s sitemap index.