Sitemap XML Validator
Paste a sitemap XML and verify it against the sitemaps.org 0.9 schema — URL validity, namespace, duplicates, changefreq, priority, and the 50K-URL limit all in one pass.
How to use this tool3 quick steps
Find your sitemap
Most live at/sitemap.xml— visithttps://yoursite.com/sitemap.xmlin a browser.Copy the full XML
Right-click → View Source (or Ctrl+A → Ctrl+C in the browser). Paste everything below.Review issues
We check XML well-formedness, urlset namespace, URL formatting, lastmod date format, priority/changefreq values, and 50,000-URL/50MB limits.
Use this with
Related crawlers & indexing tools
Sitemap Validation Guide
Catch sitemap errors before Google does
Google silently drops invalid sitemap entries — which means you can submit a sitemap, get a 'successful' response in Search Console, and still have half your URLs ignored. This tool validates the same way Google does: URL-by-URL, with clear error messages for each.
The 50,000 URL limit
Sitemaps are capped at 50K URLs and 50MB uncompressed. Above that, you need a sitemap index linking to multiple child sitemaps. Every large site hits this — plan for it early.
URL validity
Every <loc> must be a fully-qualified absolute URL under 2,048 characters. Relative URLs, javascript: URLs, and anything over 2K chars get silently dropped.
Namespace requirement
Root element must include xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9". Missing the namespace makes the whole sitemap invalid — a common CMS export bug.
changefreq values
Valid values: always, hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, never. Google ignores changefreq anyway but other crawlers honor it. Invalid values cause the entry to be skipped.
priority is 0.0 to 1.0
Must be a decimal between 0.0 and 1.0. Google ignores priority too, but malformed values still fail validation. Default is 0.5 if omitted.
lastmod in ISO 8601
YYYY-MM-DD or full ISO 8601 timestamp. Other formats (e.g., '01/15/2026' or '15 Jan 2026') cause the entry to be rejected. Good CMSes generate this correctly; custom sitemaps often don't.
Pro Tips
Once you approach 50K URLs, create a sitemap index that links to multiple child sitemaps. Each child can have its own 50K URLs, so a sitemap index with 50K children scales to 2.5B URLs.
Google accepts .xml.gz files transparently. Gzipping cuts bandwidth 80%+ and doesn't require any sitemap-level changes.
Never include URLs you canonicalize elsewhere or that have a noindex tag. Google crawls them, wastes budget, and reports them as errors. Only canonical URLs belong here.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What's the difference from Google's Search Console sitemap report?
- Search Console validates AFTER Google fetches your sitemap — minutes to hours after a change. This tool validates the XML itself, synchronously, with no network round-trip. Catch errors during staging before pushing live.
- Does this check URL accessibility?
- No — we validate the XML structure only, not whether URLs return 200 OK. For URL status, use a crawler like Screaming Frog or our Redirect Chain Visualizer.
- Do I need a sitemap if I have a small site?
- Under 50 pages with good internal linking, Google finds everything without a sitemap. Over 50 pages, a sitemap accelerates indexing and catches orphaned pages. Always recommended for commerce, media, and blog sites.
- How often should lastmod be accurate?
- Only update lastmod when the content genuinely changed. Bumping it on every build ('all pages modified today') trains Google to ignore it. Accurate lastmod means Google prioritizes re-crawling pages that actually changed.