What makes a sitemap invalid?

Broken XML (an unescaped & in a URL is the classic), a missing or wrong namespace, relative URLs, invalid lastmod dates, or more than 50,000 URLs or 50 MB in one file.

Does it check that my URLs work?

No. It checks the file itself in your browser and doesn't fetch the URLs. Search Console's sitemap report shows whether Google could read the sitemap and how many URLs it found.

Do URLs need to be escaped in a sitemap?

Yes. A sitemap is XML, so & must be written as &, and characters outside ASCII should be percent-encoded. The validator flags URLs that would break parsing.

Is anything I paste uploaded?

No. Every tool runs in your browser, so the text, HTML, URLs and images you use are processed on your device and are not sent to our server or stored. Reloading or closing the page clears them.

Yes. Every tool is free with no sign-up and no limits on use. Clearly labeled ads keep it that way.

Will these tools improve my rankings?

They help you get the details right: tags that are complete and valid, previews that read well, files crawlers can parse. No tool can guarantee rankings; those depend on your content, your site and how search engines evaluate them.

XML Sitemap Validator

Check a sitemap file for XML and protocol errors.

100% Free
No Sign Up
Works in Your Browser

Sitemap validator

Check sitemap.xml for errors and bad URLs

Sitemap XML

Paste a sitemap or a sitemap index (uncompressed XML).

2 errors1 warning

Type: URL sitemap
URLs: 5
Size: 628 bytes
Hosts: www.example.com

<lastmod> "20/09/2026" isn't a W3C datetime (YYYY-MM-DD or YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss+00:00).
<loc> "/blog/cold-brew-at-home" isn't an absolute http(s) URL.
Duplicate URL (first listed on line 7).
Google ignores <changefreq> and <priority>. They're harmless but do nothing for Google.

Everything runs in your browser. Nothing is uploaded.

More SEO Tools

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Every everyday SEO tool, right in your browser.

No installs. No uploads. No signup.

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SEO tools: 26
Reference guides: 7
Bytes uploaded: 0

How to use the sitemap validator

Three steps, all in your browser.

1
Paste the sitemap
Copy the XML of a sitemap or sitemap index and paste it in.
2
Set the rules
Add rules or URLs. The result updates instantly.
3
Copy the result
Copy what you need in one click. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.

XML Sitemap Validator: what to know

The sitemap validator checks a sitemap.xml file or sitemap index in your browser. It parses the XML and reports syntax errors, a missing or wrong namespace, URLs that aren't absolute http or https URLs, invalid lastmod dates, duplicate URLs and files over the protocol's limit of 50,000 URLs. Paste the file's contents; it isn't fetched or uploaded.

XML is strict, and a single unescaped ampersand in a URL, a stray character before the XML declaration or a wrong namespace can make a crawler reject the whole file. The protocol at sitemaps.org also has rules of its own: URLs must be absolute and on the same host as the sitemap (unless cross-submission is verified), lastmod must be a W3C datetime such as 2026-03-14 or 2026-03-14T09:30:00+00:00, and an index lists sitemaps rather than pages.

A valid file is only half the job. Google also needs the URLs to be worth crawling: canonical, indexable pages that return 200. Search Console's sitemap report shows whether Google could read the file and how many URLs it discovered, and its page indexing report shows which of them were indexed.

Popular uses

Finding why Search Console can't read a sitemap
Checking a generated sitemap before deploying
Catching duplicate URLs and bad dates
Reviewing a sitemap index and its child files

Tips for the best result

Open the sitemap in a browser and copy the raw XML, not the styled view some plugins add.
Gzipped sitemaps must be decompressed before pasting.
Fix the first XML error first; later errors are often caused by it.

Read how JustYourSEO works and our privacy details. Text, HTML and images you use here are processed in your browser and are never sent to our server.