XML Sitemap Checker
Find your sitemap, see how many pages it lists and spot the redirects and broken pages that shouldn't be in it.
How to Use the XML Sitemap Checker
- Enter your domain, or the full sitemap address if you know it.
- We look in robots.txt and the usual locations, then open the sitemap and up to 5 child sitemaps.
- We test 10 URLs spread across the list to see if they load.
What a Clean Sitemap Looks Like
A sitemap should list only the final, indexable version of each page: no redirects, no 404s, no pages with noindex and no URLs from another domain. When it's full of junk, Google learns to trust it less.
The usual culprits are old pages a plugin never removed, http addresses after a move to https and a staging domain that slipped into the settings.
The Limits
Each sitemap file can hold up to 50,000 URLs or 50 MB uncompressed. Bigger sites split their URLs across several files and list them in a sitemap index. Add a Sitemap line to robots.txt and submit it in Google Search Console so you can see how many listed pages Google actually indexes.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need a sitemap?
Small sites with good internal links get crawled fine without one, but a sitemap costs nothing and Search Console's sitemap report shows you which pages aren't being indexed.
Does lastmod matter?
Google uses lastmod when it's accurate. If every page shows today's date on every build, Google learns to ignore it, so only update it when the content changes.
Why only 10 sampled URLs?
Testing every URL would take minutes on large sites and add load to your server. Ten spread across the list is enough to spot a pattern. Search Console shows the full picture.
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