XML Sitemap Checker
Fetch and validate an XML sitemap, count its URLs and flag the limits that make search engines ignore it.
Free and instant — results appear in seconds. No sign-up, no limits, and nothing you type is stored.
Enter a domain and this fetches /sitemap.xml, or give it a full sitemap URL directly. It confirms the XML parses, counts the URLs, reports how many carry a lastmod date, and flags anything that breaches the specification limits.
A sitemap that does not parse is silently ignored. There is no warning anywhere unless you look.
A worked example
Checking example.com:
Result
URL set, 1,284 URLs, 412 KB, valid XML. 1,284 entries carry a lastmod date.
First few entries
| URL | Last modified | Priority |
|---|---|---|
| https://www.example.com/ | 2026-07-28 | 1.0 |
| https://www.example.com/pricing | 2026-07-28 | 1.0 |
| https://www.example.com/blog/first-post | 2026-07-28 | 0.8 |
The problem hiding in plain sight
Every URL shares the same lastmod date, including a blog post from 2021. The generator is stamping today's date on every entry each time it rebuilds.
That is worse than omitting the field. It tells crawlers the entire site changed at once, which is obviously false, and once a search engine concludes your lastmod values are unreliable it stops using them. You lose a real signal in exchange for a fake one.
The priority values are harmless but pointless — Google ignores the field.
The fix
Configure the generator to emit the actual modification time per URL. In WordPress that is usually a setting in the SEO plugin; on a custom site it means using the row's updated_at rather than now().
What a sitemap does, and what it does not
A sitemap is a discovery aid. It tells search engines which URLs exist and roughly when they changed. It does not make anything rank, and it does not guarantee indexing — Google is explicit that a sitemap is a hint, not an instruction.
Where it earns its place is on large sites, sites with weak internal linking, and new sites with few inbound links. If a page is only reachable through a search form or five clicks deep, the sitemap may be the only way a crawler finds it.
The limits that matter
50,000 URLs per file and 50 MB uncompressed. Exceed either and the file is rejected — not truncated, rejected. Large sites split into multiple sitemaps referenced by a sitemap index, which is what this tool reports when it finds one.
lastmod is the one optional field worth filling
changefreq and priority are effectively ignored. Google has said as much repeatedly, and the reason is straightforward: they are self-declared, everybody set priority to 1.0, and the field stopped carrying information.
lastmod is different, but only if it is honest. A sitemap where every URL claims to have changed today teaches crawlers to ignore the field on your site entirely. One that updates only when content actually changes gives a genuine signal about what to recrawl.
Common problems this catches
A sitemap listing HTTP URLs on a site that moved to HTTPS years ago. A sitemap generated once at launch and never regenerated. Staging URLs that shipped to production. A plugin producing a sitemap index that points at files which no longer exist.
The underlying failure is nearly always the same — the sitemap is generated by something nobody has checked since it was installed.
Frequently asked questions
Where should my sitemap live?
Convention is /sitemap.xml at the root, and this tool assumes that when you enter a bare domain. It can live anywhere as long as robots.txt points to it with a Sitemap: line and it only lists URLs at or below its own directory.
Do I need a sitemap at all?
A small, well-linked site will be crawled fine without one. It becomes genuinely useful when the site is large, when internal linking is weak, or when it is new and has few inbound links. It costs nothing to have, so there is little reason to skip it.
Should I set priority and changefreq?
Do not bother. Google ignores both, and has said so plainly. Every site set priority to 1.0, which is exactly how a self-declared signal stops meaning anything. Spend the effort on accurate lastmod instead.
My sitemap has more URLs than Google has indexed. Is that a problem?
Not by itself. A sitemap is a suggestion. Persistent large gaps usually point at thin or duplicate content rather than a sitemap fault. Search Console will tell you which specific URLs were excluded and why, which is the more useful diagnosis.
Can I list URLs from another domain?
No. A sitemap may only contain URLs from the same host, unless you have verified cross-domain ownership in Search Console. Foreign URLs are ignored.
Should noindex pages be in the sitemap?
No. A sitemap says "please crawl and consider indexing this". A noindex tag says the opposite. Including both sends contradictory instructions and wastes crawl budget on pages you have already decided to exclude.
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