XML Sitemap Validator: Verify Sitemap Compliance
Validate your XML sitemap for errors, compliance with standards, and proper formatting. This XML sitemap validator checks for syntax errors, invalid URLs, and structural issues that could prevent search engines from properly crawling your sitemap. Perfect for SEO professionals, webmasters, and developers who need to ensure their sitemaps work correctly.
Why Sitemap Validation Matters
A valid sitemap is essential for SEO success:
- Search engine compliance: Valid XML ensures search engines can parse the file
- Index discovery: Broken sitemaps prevent proper page discovery
- Crawl efficiency: Valid sitemaps improve crawl budget usage
- Error prevention: Catches syntax errors before submission
- Data accuracy: Validates URLs are accessible and properly formatted
- Standards compliance: Ensures sitemap follows XML specification
- Search visibility: Proper sitemaps improve overall indexation
How to Validate Your Sitemap
- Enter your sitemap URL (e.g., example.com/sitemap.xml) or paste XML content
- Click "Validate Sitemap"
- Tool checks for syntax errors and compliance issues
- Review validation results and any errors found
- Fix identified issues in your sitemap
- Revalidate to verify corrections
- Submit validated sitemap to search engines
Common Sitemap Errors
| Error Type |
Cause |
Solution |
| Invalid XML |
Malformed tags or syntax |
Check XML structure and close all tags |
| Missing namespace |
Missing xmlns declaration |
Add proper namespace to urlset tag |
| Invalid URLs |
Malformed or inaccessible URLs |
Fix URL format, ensure all URLs accessible |
| Wrong date format |
lastmod not in ISO 8601 format |
Use YYYY-MM-DD format |
| File too large |
Over 50MB or 50,000+ URLs |
Split into multiple sitemaps |
Sitemap XML Structure
- XML declaration: First line must be <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
- Namespace: urlset must include xmlns attribute with proper namespace URL
- URL entries: Each URL in <url> tags with <loc> element
- lastmod: Optional, should be ISO 8601 format (YYYY-MM-DD)
- changefreq: Optional hint about update frequency
- priority: Optional relative priority (0.0-1.0)
- Proper closing: All tags must be properly closed
Sitemap Validation Best Practices
- Validate before submitting: Always validate before first submission
- Regular revalidation: Validate whenever you update your sitemap
- Use correct namespace: Must use http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9
- Include all URLs: Ensure all important pages are listed
- Remove deleted URLs: Remove URLs that no longer exist or return errors
- Use absolute URLs: Always use full URLs, not relative paths
- Split large sitemaps: Break into multiple files for 50,000+ URLs
- Use sitemap index: For multiple sitemaps, create sitemap index file
Advanced Validation
Schema validation: Validates against XML schema to ensure strict compliance with sitemap specification.
URL accessibility: Advanced validators check if each URL returns successful HTTP response.
URL deduplication: Identifies duplicate URLs that shouldn't both be in sitemap.
Image/Video extensions: Validates extended sitemaps for images and video content.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does my sitemap need to be valid?
Yes. Invalid sitemaps may not be parsed correctly by search engines. Always validate before submitting to Google Search Console or Bing Webmaster Tools.
What's the difference between sitemap and sitemap.xml?
Sitemap is general term for URL lists. sitemap.xml is the XML format file. HTML sitemaps exist but aren't useful for search engines. XML sitemaps are standard.
How many URLs can one sitemap have?
Maximum 50,000 URLs per file. For more URLs, create multiple sitemap files and use sitemap index. Maximum file size is 50MB uncompressed.
Should I update lastmod dates?
Only if pages are actually modified. Accurate lastmod dates help search engines identify truly updated content. Incorrect dates reduce their usefulness.
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