Summary
The free sitemap checker finds the XML sitemap of any site, tells you whether it is a list of pages or an index of sitemaps, and flags the structural problems that stop search engines from reading it: no XML declaration, no namespace, more than 50,000 URLs, a file over 50 MB, duplicate URLs or an empty file. It also lists the URLs with their last modification date and charts them by year, so you can see at a glance how fresh the sitemap really is.
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A sitemap checker answers two questions: can search engines read your sitemap, and does it describe the site you have today? Google explains that a sitemap helps search engines discover the URLs of a site, but that it does not guarantee every listed item will be crawled and indexed (Google Search Central, what is a sitemap). A clean, current file gives your important pages the best chance.
What does the sitemap checker test?
Enter a domain or the full address of a sitemap. With a domain, the tool tries the usual locations one after the other: /sitemap.xml, /sitemap_index.xml, /sitemap/sitemap.xml, then the www version of /sitemap.xml. It stops at the first file that looks like a sitemap and runs these checks.
| Check | Rule | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Sitemap found | The file answers with a success status and contains urlset or sitemapindex | A sitemap that returns an error or an HTML page is never read |
| Type | urlset (a list of pages) or sitemapindex (a list of sitemaps) | An index must point to sitemaps, not to pages |
| XML declaration | The file starts with <?xml version="1.0"?> | Strict parsers expect it |
| Namespace | xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9" | Required by the protocol on the urlset tag |
| Size | 50,000 URLs and 50 MB uncompressed at most | Above that, the file must be split |
| Duplicates | Each URL listed once | Repeated URLs are noise and often reveal a generation bug |
| Empty file | At least one URL or one sitemap | An empty sitemap usually means a broken plugin |
The result shows four cards (number of URLs, HTTP status, type and number of warnings), the list of issues, the URLs with their lastmod date and a chart of URLs by year of last update. Three checks per day are free; a Sorank account removes the limit.
What are the rules of a valid XML sitemap?
They come from the sitemap protocol, which Google, Bing and other search engines follow. The sitemaps.org protocol asks for a UTF-8 file that opens with a urlset tag carrying the namespace, and one url entry with a loc tag for each page.
- Size limits: no more than 50,000 URLs and no more than 50 MB (52,428,800 bytes) uncompressed per file. You may gzip the file, but the uncompressed size still counts.
- Index files: above those limits, split the URLs into several sitemaps and list them in a sitemap index, which can itself list up to 50,000 sitemaps.
- Escaping: all values must be entity-escaped, so an ampersand in a URL is written &.
- Dates: lastmod uses the W3C Datetime format, such as 2026-10-14, and must be the date the page changed, not the date the sitemap was generated.
Google adds its own guidance: use fully qualified, absolute URLs, include the URLs you want to see in search results, and post the sitemap at the root so it can cover the whole site (Google, build and submit a sitemap). Need to create one from scratch? The XML sitemap generator explores a site and writes the file for you.
Which sitemap tags do search engines actually use?
Mostly loc and lastmod. Google states that it ignores the priority and changefreq values, and that it uses lastmod only if the value is consistently and verifiably accurate. A change to the main content, the structured data or the links counts as significant; a new copyright date does not.
| Tag | Status in the protocol | How Google treats it |
|---|---|---|
| loc | Required | Crawls the URL exactly as listed |
| lastmod | Optional | Used when it is reliably accurate |
| changefreq | Optional | Ignored |
| priority | Optional | Ignored |
Bing gives lastmod even more weight. Its webmaster team describes lastmod as a key signal that helps Bing decide which URLs to recrawl, or to skip when nothing has changed, and links freshness to how fast updates appear in search results and AI answers (Bing Webmaster Blog, 2025). Fake dates that change on every build waste that signal.
How do you read the results?
- Check the status first. "Valid sitemap" means the file was found and is well formed. "Sitemap found with warnings" lists what to fix. "Sitemap not found" shows the URLs tested: declare the real location in robots.txt, or give the tool the exact address.
- Compare the URL count with your site. A shop with 3,000 products and a sitemap of 400 URLs is missing pages; a blog of 80 articles with 2,000 URLs is listing tags, filters or parameters.
- Read the chart by year. If every URL shows today's date, lastmod is generated automatically and carries no information. If most dates are several years old on a site you update every week, the generator is not reading your real dates.
- Scan the URL list. Look for http instead of https, a host without www when your site uses www, test or staging addresses, and URLs with tracking parameters.
Which URLs should a sitemap contain?
Only the canonical, indexable pages that answer with a 200 status. Every other URL sends a mixed signal: you ask search engines to crawl a page that you also tell them to ignore.
| Keep in the sitemap | Remove from the sitemap |
|---|---|
| Canonical pages you want in search results | Duplicates that point to another canonical URL |
| Pages that return 200 | Redirected URLs (301, 302) and errors (404, 410, 5xx) |
| Indexable pages | Pages with a noindex tag |
| Pages crawlers may visit | URLs blocked by robots.txt |
| One version of each address | Session, sorting and tracking parameters |
Test doubtful URLs one by one with the indexability checker, the canonical checker and the redirect checker, and make sure your robots.txt rules do not contradict the file with the robots.txt checker.
Does every website need a sitemap?
Not always. Google says a site may not need one if it is small, about 500 pages or fewer, comprehensively linked internally, and without many media files or news pages to show in search. A sitemap becomes useful when the site is large, new with few external links, or rich in video, images or news. Most CMS already publish one, so the question is less "do I need it" than "is it correct".
A sitemap also does not fix weak internal linking. Pages that no other page links to, known as orphan pages, may be discovered through the sitemap, but they receive no internal authority. Our glossary entries on XML sitemaps and crawl budget explain how the two work together.
How do you submit a sitemap to Google and Bing?
Three ways, which can be combined:
- robots.txt: add a line such as Sitemap: https://www.example.com/sitemap.xml. Every crawler that reads robots.txt finds it.
- Google Search Console: paste the address in the Sitemaps report. The report then shows a status for each sitemap: Success, Couldn't fetch, or Sitemap had X errors (Search Console Help, Sitemaps report).
- Bing Webmaster Tools: submit the same address in its Sitemaps section, and consider IndexNow to notify changes as they happen.
Search Console also reminds you that it can take time to crawl the URLs of a sitemap, and that not all of them may be crawled. Run the checker after every migration, theme change or plugin update, since those are the moments a sitemap breaks without anyone noticing.
How do you keep a sitemap healthy over time?
Check it once a month, and every time the structure of the site changes. Note the URL count and the share of recent lastmod dates, and compare them with the previous month: a sudden drop in URLs or a wall of identical dates are the two most common signs of a broken generator.
A sitemap only lists what you publish. To grow the number of pages worth indexing, the Sorank blog article generator writes and publishes sourced articles on your site, and the GEO and SEO dashboard tracks how those pages perform in Google and in AI answers. For a step-by-step method, read our guide to sitemap generators.
A good sitemap is valid XML, lists only canonical pages that return 200, and carries honest lastmod dates. Check yours now, fix what the tool flags, then see the Sorank plans to keep publishing pages that deserve to be in it.
