XML Sitemap Validator

Enter a domain and this fetches its sitemap and checks every URL and tag against the sitemaps.org protocol. A sitemap index is followed, so any child sitemap opens and validates in the same pass, and the URL list exports as a CSV you can run through the other checks.

What this checks

The namespace and the root element, the 50,000 URL and 50 MB limits, URLs that are relative rather than absolute, duplicates, entries pointing at another hostname, and lastmod, changefreq, and priority values that search engines discard. Errors break the sitemap; warnings cost you crawl budget or leave a signal unread.

The sitemap as a list to check against

Validating the XML is the smaller half of what this is for. The larger half is the URL list, because a sitemap is the closest thing most sites have to an authoritative inventory of the pages they want indexed. Export it and you have the input for every other check worth running.

Paste that list into the redirect checker and anything answering a 301 or a 404 should not have been in the sitemap at all. Paste it into the canonical checker and any page canonicalized elsewhere is contradicting its own sitemap entry. Paste it into the meta tag checker and you get the title and description audit for the whole site in one pass.

Those three checks against a sitemap export catch most of what a paid crawler would find, and none of them need an account.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many URLs can a sitemap contain?

Up to 50,000 URLs and 50 MB uncompressed. Beyond either limit, split it into several sitemaps and list them in a sitemap index, which may itself hold 50,000 sitemaps. Both limits are checked above, and a sitemap index is checked against the same 50,000 ceiling on the sitemaps it lists.

Why does a large sitemap come back as too large to validate?

The fetch reads the first 5 MB of a file and stops there. A sitemap larger than that arrives cut off, so it is reported as too large rather than parsed in part and reported as broken XML it is not. The protocol allows 50 MB, so a file that size is valid; splitting it into several sitemaps listed in a sitemap index makes it checkable here.

Can I check a gzipped sitemap?

Not by URL. A .xml.gz file is valid and search engines read it, but this tool reads XML as text, so a compressed sitemap has to be downloaded, decompressed, and pasted on the Paste XML tab. A sitemap index that lists gzipped children is read normally; only the children need that step, and they are marked as gzipped in the list.

What format does lastmod need?

W3C datetime, which means 2026-08-07 or a full timestamp such as 2026-08-07T14:30:00+00:00. Anything else, including the common 07/08/2026, is ignored. Google has said it uses lastmod when it is consistently accurate and disregards it entirely on sites where every URL claims to have changed today.

Do priority and changefreq do anything?

Google ignores both. They remain valid tags and other search engines may read them, but tuning them will not change how Google crawls your site. The tags that matter are loc and, when it is honest, lastmod.

Should every page be in the sitemap?

Every page you want indexed, and nothing else. A sitemap listing pages that are noindexed, canonicalized elsewhere, or redirecting sends contradictory signals: the sitemap says "index this" while the page says the opposite. Cleaning that up is often the quickest crawl-budget win on a large site.

Can a sitemap list URLs on another domain?

Only in the cross-submission case, where the sitemap is declared in the robots.txt of the other domain or both are verified in the same Search Console account. Otherwise cross-host entries are ignored, which is why they are flagged above.

Where should my sitemap live?

Anywhere, as long as you declare it. Convention puts it at /sitemap.xml, and a Sitemap: line in robots.txt is how crawlers find one that lives elsewhere. The robots.txt tester will show you which sitemaps a domain currently declares.