XML Sitemap Validator
Find your XML sitemap via robots.txt or /sitemap.xml, check it parses, count URLs, review lastmod and confirm the home page is listed.
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Run the full audit →What the XML Sitemap Validator checks
An XML sitemap is a list of the URLs you want search engines to know about, optionally with the date each one last changed. It helps crawlers discover pages that are new, deep in the site or poorly linked.
This validator looks for your sitemap the way crawlers do: first in the Sitemap: lines of robots.txt, then at /sitemap.xml. It checks that the file is valid XML in the sitemap format, counts the URLs (or the child sitemaps in a sitemap index), reviews the lastmod values, confirms the URLs are on the same host, and checks whether your home page is listed. It reads the sitemap file itself; it does not request each listed URL.
Why it matters
A sitemap that fails to parse is ignored entirely, and one that lists URLs on another host, on the http:// version of the site or behind redirects sends crawlers to the wrong addresses. Search engines treat your sitemap as a hint about which URLs you consider canonical, so a stale or inconsistent file weakens that signal.
Google ignores the priority and changefreq fields but does use lastmod when it is consistently accurate. A sitemap where every URL shows the same timestamp, typically the time the file was generated, tells crawlers nothing.
How to fix common problems
Generate the sitemap from your CMS or build rather than by hand, so it stays in sync with published content. List only canonical, indexable URLs that return 200: no redirects, no noindex pages, no parameters you canonicalize away, and always the final HTTPS host.
Keep each file under 50,000 URLs and 50 MB uncompressed; beyond that, split it and reference the parts from a sitemap index. Set lastmod to the date the content meaningfully changed, in W3C format such as 2026-10-30 or 2026-10-30T09:00:00+00:00.
Reference the sitemap in robots.txt with an absolute URL (Sitemap: https://example.com/sitemap.xml) and submit it in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools. Our XML sitemap guide has examples. The full PerfoMetrix audit also checks whether the scanned page appears in your sitemap and matches its canonical URL, among 170+ checks.
Questions
Do I need a sitemap if my site is small?
Not strictly. A small, well-linked site is easy to crawl without one. A sitemap still helps new pages get discovered faster and is cheap to maintain when your CMS generates it.
Does listing a URL guarantee it gets indexed?
No. A sitemap helps discovery; indexing depends on the page itself, its quality and its canonical signals.
Can my sitemap live on a different domain?
Cross-host sitemaps are possible with verified ownership in Search Console, but keeping the sitemap on the same host as its URLs avoids problems. This tool expects same-host URLs.
Does this check whether every URL in the sitemap works?
No. It validates the sitemap file. Requesting every listed URL would be a site crawl, which this free check does not perform.
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