XML Sitemap Checker
Reads your sitemap file, including index files, and reports the URL count, the lastmod dates, http/https and domain mismatches, and any duplicated addresses.
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What does this tool look at?
Everything that decides whether Google can crawl and index your page: tags, redirects, robots, sitemaps and server responses.
- Sitemap index files followed into their children
- URL count checked against the 50,000 limit
- Validity of the lastmod dates
- Duplicate, relative and off-domain addresses
What this tool measures
An XML sitemap is the list of pages on your site, asking a search engine “do you know about these?” It speeds up discovery, and it matters most on new sites and on pages with few internal links. But the list has to be true: addresses that redirect, return 404 or carry noindex make it untrustworthy.
The tool checks /sitemap.xml first and, failing that, follows the address declared in your robots.txt. If the file is a sitemap index, it opens the first five child files and counts their addresses too.
Then it audits the list: duplicates, relative URLs, addresses on another domain, leftover http entries, and lastmod dates that cannot be parsed. It finishes by requesting the first eight addresses one by one to confirm they actually answer.
How to use it
- 1
Enter your domain or the sitemap address directly
If your file lives elsewhere, paste the full address; otherwise the tool checks the root and then robots.txt.
- 2
Compare the URL count with what you expect
If your site has 400 pages and the sitemap shows 40, something in the generation rule is filtering them out.
- 3
Look at the sample response section
A 301 or 404 here means the sitemap is stale. The list should always carry final addresses.
- 4
Close the lastmod warnings
A date must either be correctly formatted or absent. Stamping today's date on every deploy makes the signal worthless.
When to use it
- After launching a new site, to confirm the sitemap is actually being generated.
- When Search Console reports “couldn't fetch sitemap” and you need to find where the file breaks.
- After a migration, to check the listed addresses were updated to the new structure.
- On a site with thousands of pages, to confirm the child files of the index are working.
Reading the result
301 on the sample addresses
The sitemap lists old URLs. You are making the crawler take an extra step; refresh the list with final addresses.
Duplicate address
The same page is listed more than once, usually because index files overlap. Deduplicate in the generation rule.
Relative address
A sitemap requires absolute URLs. Write “https://yoursite.com/services” instead of “/services”.
Different domain
A sitemap can only list pages on its own domain. Foreign addresses are discarded.
No lastmod anywhere
Google has to notice your changes on its own crawl schedule. Stamp real dates on the pages you actually update.
Questions about the XML Sitemap Checker
At most 50,000 URLs and 50 MB uncompressed. Beyond that, use a sitemap index: the index file lists child files, and each child carries its own 50,000 share.
Google has said for years that it ignores both fields. Leaving them out costs you nothing. The one helper field that still counts is lastmod, and only when it is filled in honestly.
No. The sitemap says “index these”, noindex says “do not index this”. The contradiction reduces the trust Google places in your sitemap. The same applies to redirected pages and pages whose canonical points elsewhere.
You do not; the Sitemap line in robots.txt is enough. But submitting it gives you a report of how many URLs were read and how many were indexed, and that feedback alone makes it worth doing.
Use it alongside these
The other tools in the same category. Run them together and you see the whole picture.
The tool found the problem. Now for the fix
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