Make a sitemap.xml from a list of your pages, or check an existing sitemap. The generator cleans the list (duplicates, fragments, relative paths), adds last-modified dates and splits large sites into files with a sitemap index. The validator reads a live or pasted sitemap, checks it against the protocol and Google's limits, and tests whether its pages actually load.
An XML sitemap is a file that lists the pages you want search engines to find, with the date each one last changed. It doesn't make pages rank, but it helps Google and Bing discover new and updated pages quickly, especially on new sites, large sites and pages with few links pointing to them. This tool does both jobs: it builds a sitemap.xml from a list of addresses, and it checks an existing sitemap, live or pasted, for the mistakes that make search engines ignore it.
Tip: Only list pages you want in search results: the final, canonical address of each page that answers 200 OK and isn't marked noindex. A sitemap full of redirects, errors and duplicates teaches Google to trust it less.
It reads urlset sitemaps, sitemap indexes, compressed .xml.gz files and plain-text sitemaps. It checks the XML namespace, broken or unclosed entries, unescaped ampersands (the most common reason a whole sitemap fails), relative or missing <loc> values, duplicates, dates in the wrong format or in the future, priorities outside 0 to 1, invalid change frequencies, more than 50,000 entries or 50 MB, and addresses on other hosts, the other protocol or outside the sitemap's folder.
For a sitemap index, each listed sitemap has a Check button. For a sitemap of pages, Check if the first 20 pages load asks each address once and shows its status: 200 is good, while 301 and 302 redirects, 404s and 410s should be replaced by the final address or removed.
Add a line to robots.txt, such as Sitemap: https://www.example.com/sitemap.xml; every search engine reads it. Then submit the same address in Google Search Console (Indexing, Sitemaps) and Bing Webmaster Tools, which report how many addresses were read and any errors. Resubmitting isn't needed after every change: search engines fetch the sitemap again on their own, and an updated <lastmod> tells them what changed.
WordPress (version 5.5 and later) makes a sitemap at /wp-sitemap.xml, and SEO plugins such as Yoast and Rank Math make /sitemap_index.xml; Shopify, Wix and Squarespace make /sitemap.xml automatically. In those cases use the validator to check the automatic sitemap rather than making a new one, and make sure only one is listed in robots.txt and Search Console.
A generated list is ideal for static sites, landing-page builders without a sitemap, single-page apps, a set of new pages you want found quickly, or a site moving to a new domain, where a sitemap of the old addresses helps search engines see the redirects sooner. Export the list of pages from your CMS, a spreadsheet or a crawler, paste it here and download the file.
Use each page's real last change. Setting every page to today makes Google ignore the dates altogether.
Leave out paginated, filtered, sorted and tracking (?utm=) versions unless they are the canonical page.
A page marked noindex in a sitemap sends opposite signals. Remove one or the other.
Large sites often split by type: products, categories, blog posts. Errors are then easy to trace.
Regenerate or update the file when pages are added or removed; a stale sitemap with 404s helps nobody.
Pages with important images can list them inside <image:image> tags; the validator shows how many each page has.
Small sites with good internal links are found without one, but a sitemap costs nothing and helps new, large or rarely linked pages get discovered faster. Google recommends one for most sites.
No. It helps search engines find and recrawl pages; whether they rank depends on the pages themselves.
50,000 addresses or 50 MB uncompressed per file. Use a sitemap index to list up to 50,000 sitemaps.
Not for Google, which ignores them. Bing may read changefreq. An accurate lastmod matters far more.
The address is wrong, the file is blocked by robots.txt or a firewall, or the server answers with an error or an HTML page. Check the address here; it shows exactly what the server sends back.
No. Sitemaps are built in your browser. A live sitemap is fetched once by our server for the check and isn't kept.
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