Free toolSitemap Validator

Check your sitemap is actually valid.

Paste a sitemap URL and we'll check its structure, limits and every URL inside against the sitemaps.org spec. Free.

Structure checkSpec limitsURL validationFree

What we check for.

Structure, spec limits and every URL inside, explained in plain English.

92
score
Valid

A clear health score

One 0–100 score weighted by how serious each problem is, so you know if it's fine or broken.

Too many URLs
3 http:// URLs
Correct namespace

Errors and warnings

Every issue explained in plain English, separated into what breaks it and what just weakens it.

URLs12,480 / 50,000
Size3.2 / 50 MB

Spec limits checked

The 50,000-URL and 50MB caps, namespace, XML declaration and content type, all verified.

Why use it

A broken sitemap fails without a sound.

Search engines don't email you when your sitemap is malformed, they just stop using it. Validating takes seconds and tells you what they can't.

Silently ignored40
<urlset>
  <url><loc>/about</loc>
  <lastmod>20-07-2026</lastmod>
Missing namespace
Relative URL
Invalid date format

Google fetches it, can't parse it, and moves on without telling you.

Valid98
<urlset xmlns="…/0.9">
  <url><loc>https://site.com/about</loc>
  <lastmod>2026-07-20</lastmod>
Correct namespace
Absolute https URLs
W3C dates

Parsed cleanly, every URL counted, nothing silently dropped.

Catch silent failures

A malformed sitemap doesn't throw an error, it just quietly gets ignored. You'd never know unless you checked.

Spec limits enforced

50,000 URLs and 50MB per file are hard caps. Go over and the whole file can be rejected, we tell you before that happens.

Plain-English fixes

Not raw XML errors, but what's wrong, how many entries it affects, and exactly what to change.

How it works

One URL in, every problem out.

No XML knowledge needed. We read the spec so you don't have to.

1

Paste your sitemap URL

example.com/sitemap.xml

Paste a sitemap URL, or just a domain and we'll try /sitemap.xml.

Give us the full sitemap URL, or just a domain and we'll look for /sitemap.xml automatically.

2

We run the checks

Root element
XML namespace
50,000 URL limit
Absolute URLs
W3C lastmod dates

Structure, namespace, spec limits and every URL inside, validated against the sitemaps.org standard.

3

Fix what's flagged

Score76
3 http:// URLs
2 duplicate URLs
Correct namespace

A 0–100 score plus each error and warning explained, so you know exactly what to change.

Guide

What makes a sitemap valid.

The rules search engines apply, the limits that break files, and the mistakes that quietly cost you crawl coverage.

What makes a sitemap valid

A valid sitemap is well-formed XML with a <urlset> root (or <sitemapindex> for an index), the sitemaps.org 0.9 namespace declared, and at least one <loc> entry. Every <loc> must be a complete absolute URL including the protocol, not a relative path.

Optional tags have rules too: <lastmod> must be a W3C date, <priority> a number from 0.0 to 1.0, and <changefreq> one of seven specific values. Get these wrong and parsers may skip the entry or the file.

The limits that break files

A single sitemap can contain at most 50,000 URLs and must be under 50MB uncompressed. Exceed either and search engines can reject the whole file, not just the overflow. The fix is to split your URLs across several sitemaps and list them in a sitemap index.

Size creeps up quietly on large sites, especially when every entry carries lastmod, priority and changefreq tags, so it's worth checking after a big content push.

Common mistakes worth fixing

Most real-world problems aren't exotic: relative URLs, http:// links on an https:// site, URLs pointing at a different domain, duplicated entries, and dates in DD-MM-YYYY instead of YYYY-MM-DD. None of them throw a visible error, they just quietly reduce what gets crawled.

  1. 1Use absolute https:// URLs everywhere
  2. 2Match the sitemap's host to the URLs inside it
  3. 3Format dates as YYYY-MM-DD
  4. 4Remove duplicate entries
  5. 5Split past 50,000 URLs or 50MB

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Sitemap Validator, answered.

What it does, what it runs on, and how it fits the platform.

See the full platform →

The most common causes are a missing or wrong xmlns namespace, no <urlset> or <sitemapindex> root element, relative instead of absolute URLs, and malformed <lastmod> dates. Any of these can stop a search engine parsing the file.

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