Sitemap Checker
Find a site’s sitemap and check what it actually contains.
A sitemap is a hint, not an instruction. Listing a URL does not guarantee it is crawled or indexed, and omitting one does not prevent it. What a sitemap does well is surface pages that are hard to reach by following links — deep archives, filtered listings, recently published content — and give crawlers a lastmod date to prioritise by.
The two structural forms matter when you are debugging. A urlset lists pages directly. A sitemap index lists other sitemap files, which is how large sites stay inside the 50,000-URL and 50 MB limits that apply to a single file. If a checker reports one URL for a large site, it has almost certainly found the index and stopped there.
The most common real defect is stale or wrong content: URLs that now 404, URLs that redirect, or http:// entries left behind after a migration to HTTPS. All three waste crawl budget, and the last actively encourages indexing of the insecure version of your pages.
What this tool does
Looks where crawlers look
Checks /sitemap.xml first, then every Sitemap: line declared in robots.txt — the same two places a crawler tries.
Index or urlset
Distinguishes a sitemap index that points at other sitemaps from one that lists pages, since they need different follow-up.
Protocol limits
Flags a file over the 50,000-URL cap, which crawlers truncate or reject rather than partially accepting.
HTTP URLs and lastmod
Listing http:// URLs invites indexing of the insecure version; missing lastmod means changes get picked up more slowly.
Frequently asked questions
Where should my sitemap live?
Conventionally at /sitemap.xml, but it can live anywhere as long as robots.txt declares it with a Sitemap: line. Search consoles also let you submit the URL directly. A sitemap can only list URLs at or below its own location, so a sitemap in a subdirectory cannot cover the whole site.
What are the size limits?
A single sitemap file may contain at most 50,000 URLs and must be no more than 50 MB uncompressed. Beyond that, split it into several files and reference them from a sitemap index, which may itself contain up to 50,000 sitemaps.
What is a sitemap index?
A sitemap that lists other sitemaps rather than pages. It uses a <sitemapindex> root with <sitemap> entries instead of <urlset> with <url> entries. Large sites use one to stay within the per-file limits, often splitting by content type or by date.
Does lastmod actually matter?
Yes, when it is honest. Crawlers use it to decide what to re-crawl first. A site that sets lastmod to the current date on every URL at every build teaches the crawler that the field is meaningless, and it stops being used — which is worse than omitting it.
Should a sitemap include redirected or noindex URLs?
No. A sitemap should list the canonical, indexable, 200-returning version of each page. Including redirects, 404s or noindexed pages spends crawl budget on URLs that cannot be indexed and is a common cause of coverage warnings in search consoles.
Do I need a sitemap at all?
A small, well-linked site usually does not — crawlers find everything by following links. A sitemap earns its place on large sites, sites with pages that are not reachable through navigation, new sites with few inbound links, and sites where you want lastmod to steer re-crawling.
Monitor it, don't just check it
One-off checks catch what is broken today. CertNotify watches your certificates, domains, DNS and code continuously and tells you before something breaks.