XML Sitemap Validator
Validate any XML sitemap against the protocol Google actually follows. Auto-discovers your sitemap, checks structure and limits, validates every URL entry, and live-tests a sample for 404s, redirects, and noindex tags.
Validate your XML sitemap the way Google reads it
Your sitemap is the primary way search engines discover your pages — and a broken one fails silently. Search Console might show a vague "couldn’t fetch" error, or worse, quietly skip URLs. This free sitemap validator fetches your live sitemap (auto-discovering it from robots.txt if you just enter a domain), parses the XML, and checks everything the sitemaps.org protocol requires: root element and namespace, well-formed absolute <loc> URLs, valid lastmod dates, and the 50,000-URL / 50 MB limits. Sitemap indexes are supported, including automatic checks of the first child sitemaps and detection of invalid nested indexes.
Beyond syntax: live URL checks
A sitemap can be perfectly valid XML and still hurt you. Listing URLs that redirect, return 404s, or carry a noindex tag teaches Google to distrust your sitemap. This sitemap checker fetches a sample of URLs spread across your file and flags exactly those problems — then you can trace any redirect it finds with the Redirect Checker and verify crawler access with the Robots.txt Tester.
Common sitemap mistakes
- Non-canonical URLs — listing http:// or non-www variants that redirect to the real URL.
- Stale or fabricated lastmod — Google uses lastmod for recrawl priority only when it's credible.
- Cross-host URLs — a sitemap on example.com can't reliably submit URLs for other hosts.
- Noindexed pages in the sitemap — "please index this" and "don't index this" at the same time.
- Oversized files — past 50,000 URLs or 50 MB you need a sitemap index (and ours generates video sitemaps too).