Sitemap Validator
Validate XML sitemaps for protocol compliance and check URL liveness. Detects errors in XML structure, namespace, URL format, duplicate links, and broken pages. Free online sitemap checker with server-side URL status verification.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is an XML Sitemap?
An XML Sitemap is a file that lists all important pages of your website, helping search engines like Google and Bing discover and index your content. It follows the Sitemaps protocol defined at sitemaps.org. A typical sitemap contains up to 50,000 URLs, each with optional metadata like last modification date, change frequency, and priority.
What does this validator check?
This tool performs two types of validation: Protocol Compliance checks that your sitemap follows the XML Sitemap specification โ valid XML structure, correct root element (<urlset> or <sitemapindex>), proper namespace, valid URL formats, correct data types for lastmod/changefreq/priority, and more. URL Liveness Check sends HEAD requests (via our proxy server to bypass CORS) to verify that the URLs in your sitemap actually return successful HTTP responses.
What is the difference between Errors and Warnings?
Errors indicate critical issues that will cause search engines to reject your sitemap โ invalid XML, missing required fields (<loc>), or exceeding the 50,000 URL limit. These must be fixed. Warnings are recommendations for best practices โ missing namespace declaration, URLs longer than 2048 characters, or incorrectly formatted dates. These won't cause rejection but should be addressed for optimal SEO.
How does the URL Liveness Check work?
Because browsers block cross-origin requests (CORS), we route HEAD requests through our Cloudflare Worker proxy. The proxy sends HTTP HEAD requests to each URL in your sitemap and reports back the response status code. This allows us to detect broken links (404), server errors (500+), timeouts, and redirect chains. The check is limited to the first 50 URLs per request. All checks run concurrently (5 at a time) for speed.
Does this tool support sitemap index files?
Yes. If your sitemap is a sitemap index (<sitemapindex>), the validator will detect it and list all sub-sitemap URLs. However, it does not recursively fetch sub-sitemaps โ you should validate each sub-sitemap individually for a complete audit. This is by design to keep the tool fast and respect Cloudflare Workers limits.
Can I upload a .xml.gz compressed sitemap?
If you input a URL, the tool automatically detects and decompresses .xml.gz sitemaps using the browser's built-in Compression Streams API. For pasted content, please decompress the file first and paste the XML text directly.
Is my data private?
Yes. All XML parsing and protocol validation happens 100% in your browser โ your sitemap content is never sent to our servers. Only the URL Liveness Check sends URLs through our Cloudflare Worker proxy, and these requests are not logged or stored. The proxy only performs HEAD requests (no content is downloaded from your URLs).
Is this tool free?
Yes, completely free with no sign-up required. The free tier checks up to 50 URLs per sitemap. URL protocol validation is unlimited.