A sitemap that lists redirects, 404s and pages from another host is still read, but it points crawlers at the wrong places and makes the indexing reports in Search Console harder to trust. This sitemap checker reads your XML sitemap the way a crawler does: it finds the file, parses every entry, flags invalid URLs and lastmod dates, then requests a random sample of the listed pages to see whether they work.
Enter a sitemap URL or just your site address. Given a site, the checker looks for Sitemap lines in robots.txt first, then tries /sitemap.xml and /sitemap_index.xml.
What the sitemap checker tests
| Area | What we check |
|---|---|
| Discovery | Sitemap lines in robots.txt, the default locations, and redirects on the sitemap URL |
| Format | A urlset or sitemapindex root, the sitemaps.org namespace, UTF-8, escaped ampersands; plain text sitemaps are accepted |
| Size | More than 50,000 URLs, or more than 50 MB uncompressed, in one file |
| Entries | Relative URLs, other hosts, http URLs on an https site, duplicates, fragments, URLs outside the sitemap’s folder |
| lastmod | Coverage, W3C Datetime format, future dates, and the same date on nearly every URL |
| Sitemap indexes | Up to five child sitemaps opened, with status, URL counts and nested indexes |
| Live URLs | 15 random URLs requested for status codes, redirects and noindex headers |
The limits come from Google’s documentation. Google says a sitemap can hold up to 50,000 URLs or 50 MB uncompressed, must be UTF-8 encoded, and should use fully qualified, absolute URLs (Build and submit a sitemap). The XML format itself is defined by the sitemaps.org protocol.
Does Google use lastmod, priority and changefreq?
Google says it uses lastmod when the dates are consistently and verifiably accurate, and ignores priority and changefreq. An accurate lastmod helps Google decide what to recrawl. A lastmod that changes on every build, or is identical for every URL, gets ignored. Update it when the main content, structured data or links change.
Reading the results
The summary cards show the sitemap type, the URL count, the share of URLs with a lastmod, and how many sampled URLs answered 2xx. Findings below are sorted by severity:
- Errors break or waste the sitemap: nothing found, an HTML page instead of XML, relative or malformed URLs, unescaped ampersands, more than 50,000 URLs, or sampled URLs returning 4xx and 5xx.
- Warnings send crawlers to the wrong place: other hosts, http URLs, duplicates, redirecting or noindex URLs, invalid lastmod dates.
- Notices are worth a look but rarely urgent: missing lastmod, a sitemap not listed in robots.txt, an unusual content type.
For a sitemap index, the child sitemap table lists each file’s status, URL count and lastmod coverage, and the entry checks are calculated across the child files we opened.
Fixing common sitemap problems
- Redirecting and broken URLs. Generate the sitemap from the same source as your canonical URLs, so it only lists live pages that return 200. The redirect checker shows where a redirecting URL ends up.
- Mixed hosts and protocols. List the canonical host over https only. www and non-www count as different hosts.
- Noindex pages. Remove them. A sitemap should list the canonical URLs you want indexed.
- A sitemap nobody can find. Add
Sitemap: https://example.com/sitemap.xmlto robots.txt and submit the file in Search Console. The robots.txt tester confirms the line is read. - One oversized file. Split it by section or date and list the parts in a sitemap index.
Method and limits
The checker downloads up to 5 MB per file, opens up to five child sitemaps from an index, and samples 15 random URLs with HEAD requests, falling back to GET when a server rejects HEAD, without following redirects. The whole check stops after about 25 seconds, and results are marked partial when something was skipped. Gzip-compressed .xml.gz files are not analysed, so check the uncompressed version. Image, video and news extensions are detected, but their tags are not validated. Requests come from our servers, so a firewall that blocks cloud traffic can make working pages look broken.
Google says a sitemap is a hint and does not guarantee crawling or indexing (sitemaps overview). Pair this check with the Page indexing report in Search Console and the free SEO audit. The XML sitemap glossary entry covers the basics.
Frequently asked questions
- Where should my sitemap live?
- Usually at the site root, such as https://example.com/sitemap.xml. Google says a sitemap only covers URLs in its own folder and below unless you submit it in Search Console, so the root covers the whole site.
- How many URLs can one sitemap hold?
- Up to 50,000 URLs or 50 MB uncompressed per file. Larger sites split their URLs across several sitemaps and list those files in a sitemap index.
- Should every page be in the sitemap?
- List the canonical, indexable pages you want in search. Leave out redirects, error pages, noindex pages and duplicates such as URLs with tracking parameters.
- Why do sampled URLs fail here when they load in my browser?
- The sample is requested from our servers without cookies, and some firewalls block that traffic with 403 or 429 responses. If the pages work for you, check how Googlebot sees them with the URL Inspection tool in Search Console.
- Does submitting a sitemap guarantee indexing?
- No. Google says a sitemap is a hint: it does not guarantee that every listed URL will be crawled or indexed. It helps Google find URLs, especially on large or new sites.