Sitemap checker: find a site's XML sitemap and see whether it holds up.

Enter a site URL or a sitemap URL. The tool finds the sitemap, from the URL you gave, the robots.txt Sitemap line or the default location, then reports whether it parses, how many URLs it lists, any child sitemaps in an index, and a sample of URLs with obvious problems flagged.

By · Updated September 25, 2026

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XML sitemap checker

Runs on our server, which fetches the public URL you enter. We count runs and never save what you enter; an identical request may be answered from memory for up to five minutes.

What you can do with it

  • Confirm a new site's sitemap exists and is valid before submitting it
  • Check that robots.txt points search engines to the right sitemap
  • Spot a sitemap that lists staging URLs, http URLs or redirects
  • See how a large site splits its sitemap into an index and child files

How it works, step by step

  1. 1

    Find the sitemap

    Look for a Sitemap: line in /robots.txt first. If there is none, try /sitemap.xml and /sitemap_index.xml. Many CMSs generate one automatically at one of these paths.

  2. 2

    Check that it parses

    Open it in a browser. A valid sitemap is well-formed XML with a urlset or sitemapindex root. An HTML error page, a login screen or a truncated file at that address is not a sitemap, even if the URL looks right.

  3. 3

    Check the size limits

    Under the sitemaps.org protocol, one sitemap file may list up to 50,000 URLs and be up to 50MB uncompressed. Larger sites split the list into several files and list those in a sitemap index.

  4. 4

    Spot-check the URLs

    Take a sample and check each one: it should be on the right protocol and host, return a 200 directly, not be noindexed, and be the canonical version of the page. Anything else does not belong in the sitemap.

  5. 5

    Declare it and submit it

    Add an absolute Sitemap: line to robots.txt so every crawler can find it, and submit it in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools so you can see processing errors.

What a sitemap is for

An XML sitemap is a list of the URLs you want search engines to know about. Crawlers still find most pages by following links, so a sitemap matters most for new sites with few links pointing in, large sites where deep pages are many clicks from the homepage, and pages that are updated often.

It is a list of suggestions, not a set of instructions. A URL in the sitemap can still be ignored if it is blocked, noindexed, a duplicate or thin. What a sitemap does reliably is tell search engines, in one file, which URLs you consider the real ones.

The rules that are actually documented

The protocol lives at sitemaps.org and is supported by Google and Bing. The parts worth knowing:

  • Size. Up to 50,000 URLs and 50MB uncompressed per file. Files can be gzipped.
  • Sitemap index. Larger sites list several sitemap files in an index file, which is the same idea one level up.
  • Absolute URLs. Every loc is a full URL, including protocol and host.
  • Same host. A sitemap normally lists URLs on the host it is served from.
  • lastmod. The date the page’s content last meaningfully changed. Google uses it when it is accurate and ignores it when it is not.

What belongs in it

Only URLs you want indexed: canonical, returning a 200, not noindexed, not blocked in robots.txt. That rules out redirects, 404s, parameter variants, paginated duplicates, internal search results and staging URLs. A sitemap full of URLs that redirect or are noindexed sends mixed signals and makes the real errors harder to see in Search Console.

Keep lastmod honest. Set it from the date the content changed, not the date the file was regenerated. A sitemap where every page changed today is a sitemap whose dates mean nothing.

Declare it in robots.txt

Add Sitemap: https://example.com/sitemap.xml to robots.txt, with the full URL. It is one line, it sits outside the user-agent groups, and every crawler that reads robots.txt can find the sitemap from it, including the ones you never submit to. The robots.txt tester shows the live file so you can confirm the line is there.

What the checker does not do

It finds and reads the sitemap and samples its URLs. It does not fetch every listed URL, tell you which ones are indexed, or find pages missing from the sitemap. The free AI-readiness check includes a sitemap check among nine checks on a domain’s public configuration.

A sitemap lists the pages; the pages have to be worth listing. AltoRank plans and drafts that content every week, and a person approves each piece before it publishes.

Frequently asked questions

What does the checker report?

Where it found the sitemap, whether the file parses as a sitemap, how many URLs it lists, the child sitemaps if it is a sitemap index, and a sample of listed URLs with obvious problems flagged.

Does it check every URL in the sitemap?

No. It reads the sitemap and looks at a sample of the URLs it lists. It does not crawl every URL on the site. Treat a clean sample as a good sign, not proof that every entry is correct.

Can I enter just my domain?

Yes. Enter the site URL and the tool looks for a Sitemap: line in robots.txt and then the default location. If your sitemap lives somewhere unusual and is not declared in robots.txt, enter its full URL instead, and consider declaring it.

Does a sitemap get my pages indexed?

It helps search engines discover URLs, especially new ones or ones that are poorly linked. It does not guarantee indexing. A page still has to be crawlable, indexable and worth indexing.

Do priority and changefreq matter?

Google has said it ignores both. It does use lastmod, but only when the dates are consistently accurate, so a lastmod that updates on every build for every page teaches search engines to ignore it.

Does it store the URL I check?

No. Our server fetches the public robots.txt and sitemap, returns the result to your browser and keeps only a count of how many times the tool ran that day. There is a daily usage limit so it can stay free without a signup.

More free tools

Free robots.txt Tester: Is This URL Blocked? Enter a URL and pick a crawler, from Googlebot to GPTBot and PerplexityBot. See the site's live robots.txt and whether that crawler may fetch the page. Free Canonical Tag Checker: Test Any URL Enter a URL to see the canonical it declares, whether it points to itself or elsewhere, and whether the canonical target resolves. Free AI Crawler Simulator: See What GPTBot Sees Fetch any URL as GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, OAI-SearchBot and Googlebot. See each robots.txt verdict, status code and the text in the raw HTML. Free robots.txt Generator With AI Crawler Rules Build a robots.txt with AI crawler rules. Which bots train models, which answer questions, and why it matters.
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