Validate any XML sitemap — check structure, count URLs, detect errors, and inspect sitemap index files. Enter a sitemap URL or a domain to auto-detect.
What it checks: every URL in your sitemap for a 200 status, valid XML structure, and canonical consistency — the most common reasons Google won't index a submitted sitemap.
/sitemap.xml automaticallyAn XML sitemap is a file that lists all the pages on your website you want search engines to discover and index. It helps crawlers find pages that might not be easily discoverable through internal links. Most websites place their sitemap at /sitemap.xml.
A single XML sitemap can contain a maximum of 50,000 URLs and must be under 50MB uncompressed. For larger sites, use a sitemap index file that references multiple individual sitemaps. Our validator checks both single sitemaps and sitemap index files.
A sitemap index file is a sitemap that lists other sitemaps rather than individual URLs. Large sites use them to split their URLs across multiple sitemap files. The index file typically lives at /sitemap.xml and references files like /sitemap-posts.xml, /sitemap-pages.xml etc.
Google may ignore sitemap URLs that return 4xx/5xx errors, have canonical tags pointing to different URLs, are blocked by robots.txt, or redirect more than once. Use our Redirect Checker and Meta Tag Checker alongside the Sitemap Validator for a complete SEO audit.
A sitemap checker is an online tool that fetches and validates your XML sitemap file. It checks that the XML is well-formed, counts the URLs, detects any errors or missing required fields, and verifies the sitemap follows the sitemaps.org protocol that Google, Bing, and other search engines expect.
Enter your sitemap URL (usually https://yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml) into the validator above and click Validate. The tool fetches your sitemap, parses the XML, and reports the URL count, any errors, and whether it is a standard sitemap or sitemap index file.
A standard sitemap.xml lists individual page URLs directly. A sitemap index file lists other sitemap files rather than individual URLs — used when a site has more than 50,000 URLs or wants to organize pages by type (posts, products, images). Our validator handles both formats automatically.
Go to Google Search Console → Sitemaps → enter your sitemap URL (e.g. sitemap.xml) → Submit. Google will fetch and process your sitemap and show the number of URLs submitted vs indexed. Resubmit whenever you make significant changes to your site structure.
Common reasons: the sitemap returns a non-200 status code, the XML is malformed, the sitemap is blocked by robots.txt, it exceeds 50,000 URLs or 50MB, or Google has not yet crawled it after submission. Validate your sitemap here first, then check Google Search Console for specific errors.