Instantly validate your XML sitemap against the sitemaps.org specification — checks namespace, URL limits, lastmod dates, changefreq, priority & duplicates. 100% client-side, free, no sign-up.
Paste your sitemap XML and click Validate, or load a sample.
Validation results will appear here
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How to Validate Your XML Sitemap
Follow these five steps to check your sitemap against the sitemaps.org protocol and fix any issues before submitting to Google Search Console.
1
Paste or Upload Your Sitemap XML
Find your sitemap at /sitemap.xml or /sitemap_index.xml and paste the content into the editor, or upload the file directly. Load a sample to see exactly what a valid sitemap looks like.
2
Configure Validation Options
Choose which rules to enforce. For a production audit, keep all options checked. You can disable individual checks — for example, disabling the HTTPS warning if you're on HTTP during local development.
3
Click Validate
All validation runs 100% in your browser — no data is sent to any server. Results appear instantly with pass ✅, warning ⚠️, and error ❌ status for each rule.
4
Review Checks, URLs and Errors
The Checks tab shows a full rule-by-rule summary. The URLs tab lets you browse and filter individual URL entries with per-row status badges. The Errors tab groups all per-URL issues in one place.
5
Auto-Fix and Export
Click Auto-Fix to automatically repair common issues like a missing XML declaration or incorrect namespace. Then use the Report tab to export a full plain-text audit report for your team or SEO records.
About This Sitemap Validator
The TechOreo XML Sitemap Validator is a free, browser-based tool that checks your sitemap file against the sitemaps.org protocol — the open standard supported by Google, Bing, Yahoo, and Ask. Unlike server-based validators, every check runs entirely client-side using JavaScript's DOMParser, so your private or staging sitemaps are never exposed.
The validator supports standard URL sitemaps (urlset), sitemap index files (sitemapindex), and Google's extension namespaces for News, Image, and Video sitemaps. Paste your XML, upload a file, or load one of the sample sitemaps to see it in action.
What This Tool Checks
🏷️XML namespace (sitemaps.org/0.9)
🔢50,000 URL / 50 MB file limits
📅W3C / ISO 8601 lastmod date format
🔄Valid changefreq enum values
⚖️Priority range 0.0 – 1.0
🔗Absolute URL format validation
🔒HTTPS vs HTTP warning
🔁Duplicate URL detection
📰News sitemap extension (xmlns:news)
🖼️Image sitemap extension (xmlns:image)
🛠️Auto-fix for namespace & declaration
📄Exportable plain-text audit report
Frequently Asked Questions
Everything you need to know about XML sitemaps, the sitemaps.org spec, and how this validator works — answered for developers and SEO professionals alike.
An XML sitemap is a machine-readable file that lists all the important URLs on your website, along with optional metadata: when each page was last modified (lastmod), how often it changes (changefreq), and its relative importance (priority). Search engines like Google, Bing, and Yandex read sitemaps to discover and schedule crawls more efficiently — this is especially valuable for large sites, new sites with few inbound links, and sites with pages that aren't easily reached through internal navigation.
Every valid XML sitemap must declare the sitemaps.org namespace on the root element. The exact required value is: xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9" — note there is no trailing slash. Without this attribute, some search engine parsers may reject the sitemap entirely. Use the Auto-Fix button to add or correct the namespace automatically.
A single XML sitemap file may contain a maximum of 50,000 URLs and must not exceed 50 MB uncompressed. If your site exceeds this, you must split your URLs across multiple sitemap files and list them all in a sitemapindex file — a special "sitemap of sitemaps." A sitemap index can itself reference up to 50,000 individual sitemap files. Google Search Console will report an error if either limit is exceeded.
The lastmod tag must use W3C Datetime format — a profile of ISO 8601. Valid examples include: 2026-01-15 (date only), 2026-01-15T10:30:00Z (UTC datetime), or 2026-01-15T10:30:00+05:30 (with timezone offset). Common invalid formats like 15/01/2026, Jan 15, 2026, or Unix timestamps will fail validation. Note: Google has stated it uses lastmod as a strong signal — but only if the dates are accurate. Inaccurate dates may cause Google to ignore the tag entirely.
The changefreq tag accepts exactly seven values: always, hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, and never. Values like biweekly, fortnightly, or quarterly are invalid per the spec. Note that Google treats changefreq as a hint — it does not guarantee crawl frequency. The tag is still useful for signalling content volatility.
Priority accepts a decimal from 0.0 to 1.0 with a default of 0.5. It signals the relative importance of a URL compared to other pages on your own site — not compared to the wider web. Setting all pages to 1.0 provides no useful signal and is not recommended. Vary priority to reflect page importance: homepage at 1.0, main category pages at 0.8, detail pages at 0.5 or lower. Google uses priority as a hint only.
A sitemap index file uses <sitemapindex> as the root element and contains a list of <sitemap> entries — each pointing to an individual sitemap file. Use it when your site has more than 50,000 URLs, or when you want to organise URLs by type (e.g., sitemap-blog.xml, sitemap-products.xml). Each child sitemap still obeys the 50,000 URL / 50 MB limit. Submit only the index URL to Google Search Console — Google will discover and process all referenced sitemaps automatically.
Yes. This validator is 100% client-side. All XML parsing and validation logic runs entirely in your browser using the native DOMParser API. Your sitemap XML is never uploaded to, transmitted to, or stored on any external server. It is completely safe to paste in sitemaps from private, staging, or password-protected environments.
This tool supports: standard URL sitemaps (urlset), sitemap index files (sitemapindex), Google News Sitemap extension (xmlns:news), Google Image Sitemap extension (xmlns:image), and Google Video Sitemap extension (xmlns:video). Extension namespaces are detected automatically and flagged as informational. Load the "News Sitemap" or "Image Sitemap" sample to see working examples of each format.
Common causes include: incorrect or missing XML namespace, malformed lastmod dates, URLs that return 4xx/5xx HTTP status codes, non-canonical URLs (e.g., HTTP when your site uses HTTPS), duplicate URLs, and XML encoding errors. This validator catches all of these at the structure level. After fixing structural errors, ensure each URL in your sitemap returns HTTP 200 and is canonical (not redirecting or blocked by robots.txt). Resubmit the sitemap in Google Search Console after making fixes.