Sitemap Validator

What does a sitemap validator check?

A sitemap validator parses your XML the way Google and other crawlers do and flags anything that breaks the sitemaps.org protocol or is likely to be rejected. This validator reports errors (which stop the sitemap from being processed correctly) and warnings (which parse but are probably not what you intended).

1. Whether the XML is well-formed — unclosed tags, stray characters or bad encoding are reported as a parse error.
2. That the root element is (or ) with the correct sitemaps.org namespace.
3. That every has a and that each is an absolute http:// or https:// URL.
4. That values use the W3C Datetime / ISO 8601 format (date or full timestamp).
5. That is one of the allowed keywords and that is a number between 0.0 and 1.0.
6. That the sitemap stays within the 50,000-URL and 50 MB limits a single file is allowed to have.

How to validate your sitemap

Paste the file and validate it in three steps.

1. Open your live sitemap (usually at https://yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml) or the file you're editing and copy its full XML.
2. Paste it into the box and click Validate, or click Load sample to see how problems are reported.
3. Review the errors and warnings, fix them in your source file, and re-validate until it reports a valid sitemap.

Errors vs. warnings

Errors are problems a crawler can't accept — malformed XML, a missing or empty , a relative URL, an invalid date, a bad changefreq, or a priority outside 0.0–1.0. These will cause the sitemap, or that URL, to be rejected and should always be fixed. Warnings are things that parse but look suspicious, such as a missing namespace declaration, a duplicate URL, or a with no entries. Warnings are worth reviewing even when crawlers tolerate them, because they often point to a copy-paste mistake.

Sitemap limits and the sitemap index

A single XML sitemap may list at most 50,000 URLs and must be no larger than 50 MB uncompressed. If your site is bigger, split the URLs across multiple sitemap files and reference them all from a sitemap index file — a document with a root containing one entry per file. This validator recognises both formats: paste a to check the URLs, or a to check that each child has a valid absolute and lastmod.

Why use this sitemap validator?

• Catches malformed XML and shows the parser's error so you can find the exact syntax problem.
• Validates the full // structure, not just well-formedness.
• Checks every is an absolute URL and flags duplicate entries.
• Verifies dates, keywords and ranges against the sitemaps.org spec.
• Enforces the 50,000-URL / 50 MB limits and understands sitemap index files.
• Runs entirely in your browser — your sitemap is never uploaded or stored anywhere.

Frequently asked questions