Sitemap Validator
Find errors in sitemap.xml files.
Checked from our server. One location, so results show reachability from there only.
What the sitemap validator does
An XML sitemap lists the pages you want search engines to find, often with the date each one last changed. If the file has a broken tag, a relative URL or a malformed date, search engines may skip some entries or reject the whole file without telling you. This validator fetches the sitemap from our server and checks it against the sitemaps.org rules, for both plain sitemaps and sitemap indexes.
Run it after you launch a site, switch plugins or change how your CMS builds URLs. It’s also worth a check when Search Console says a sitemap “couldn’t be read” and you want to see the actual problem.
How to use the sitemap validator
- Paste the sitemap URL, or just the site address and we’ll find it through robots.txt or /sitemap.xml.
- Press Validate.
- Fix the errors listed, then review the warnings. For a sitemap index, validate each child sitemap with one click.
Understanding the results
The summary shows how many URLs or child sitemaps the file lists, its size, and how it was found. The stats row adds the share of entries with a lastmod date, plus error and warning counts. Errors break the rules: a missing <loc>, a URL that isn’t a full http or https address, a URL over 2,048 characters or with spaces, a date that isn’t in W3C format, a changefreq outside the allowed words, or a priority outside 0.0 to 1.0. An XML syntax error is reported with its line number, because nothing after it can be read.
Warnings won’t make the file invalid but are worth a look. They cover duplicate URLs, URLs on a different host, a wrong or missing namespace, an empty sitemap and lastmod dates in the future. Below the findings you’ll see the first 15 URLs, or a table of child sitemaps with a Validate link beside each one.
Questions
What are the limits?
A sitemap may list up to 50,000 URLs and be up to 50 MB uncompressed. We read up to 5 MB and say so if the file is larger.
Are gzip sitemaps supported?
Yes. We spot gzip compression from the file’s content, whatever its name, and decompress it before checking.
Why are URLs on another host flagged?
Search engines only accept URLs on the sitemap’s own host unless the other site is verified for it.
Which sitemap do you pick when robots.txt lists several?
We use the first Sitemap: line. To check the others, paste their addresses one at a time, or start from a sitemap index that links them all.