Sitemap Checker
Paste a sitemap.xml address. The checker fetches it, validates the XML, lists every URL and tests the first 30 for a real 200 answer, flagging redirects, errors and malformed entries.
How to use it
- Paste the sitemap address. If you only know the domain, try /sitemap.xml or /wp-sitemap.xml.
- Press Check sitemap. The file is fetched and parsed; a sitemap index lists its child sitemaps.
- Read the summary and the per-URL table: anything that is not 200 is a stale or broken entry to fix.
A sitemap is a promise to crawlers
Every URL in the file says: this page exists, it is worth indexing, and this is its final address. Sitemaps break that promise quietly. Pages get deleted and keep their entry, a site moves to https and the file still lists http, a plugin update changes the permalink structure and every entry becomes a redirect. Search engines notice, downgrade their trust in the file, and crawl it less.
The checker reads the file the way a crawler does, reports structural problems in plain words, and then does the part a validator cannot: it asks the server for a sample of the URLs and shows which ones no longer answer 200.
Sitemap FAQ
What does the sitemap checker test?
Three things. That the file exists and is XML a crawler can parse (urlset or sitemapindex, the right namespace, no stray HTML). That every entry has a usable loc on the same host, with lastmod dates in a valid format. And that the URLs actually answer: the first 30 are requested from our server and anything that is not a 200 is flagged, including redirects, which search engines treat as a sign the sitemap is stale.
Why only 30 URLs?
The live check requests each URL from our server, and a sitemap can hold 50,000. Thirty is enough to tell whether the sitemap is broadly healthy or broadly stale. For a full crawl of a site, the XML Sitemap Generator builds a fresh file from what is actually live, which is usually the fix anyway.
My sitemap is a sitemap index. Is that supported?
Yes. The checker recognises a sitemapindex, lists the child sitemaps and checks that they answer. Paste the address of a child sitemap to check its URLs.
Should redirected URLs be in a sitemap?
No. A sitemap should list the final, canonical URL of each page. An entry that 301s wastes crawl budget and tells search engines the file is not maintained. The checker lists every redirecting entry with its destination so you can replace it.
Where should my sitemap be?
Anywhere on the host, but /sitemap.xml is the convention and WordPress serves one at /wp-sitemap.xml by default. Reference it in robots.txt with a Sitemap: line and submit it in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.
More free tools: XML Sitemap Generator · Broken Link Checker · Robots.txt Tester · HTTP Status Checker