New free tool: XML sitemap checker

Our free XML sitemap checker is live. Enter your website and it finds your sitemaps, reads every one of them, and tests whether the pages they list actually load.

What it checks

• Can search engines find it? We look for a Sitemap line in robots.txt, then the usual addresses like /sitemap.xml.
• Is it readable? Valid XML, sitemap indexes followed to every child sitemap, .gz files included, and Google's 50,000-URL limit per file.
• Is it clean? Duplicate URLs, URLs on another domain, and http:// links on an https site.
• Is it current? How recent the <lastmod> dates are.
• Do the pages work? We request a sample of the listed URLs. A sitemap should only list pages that load directly. Redirects and 404s waste crawl time.

Why it matters

A sitemap is how you tell Google which pages count. When it lists pages that redirect or no longer exist, or leaves out new ones, those pages are slower to be found and indexed. It's one of the first things we look at when a client's pages aren't showing in search.

It joins the other free SEO tools: the SEO page checker, the AI crawler checker and the HTTP status checker. No sign-up needed.