Sitemap Checker & Finder
Find any website's sitemap.xml in seconds, then test it the way Google reads it. Enter a domain to find its sitemaps, or a sitemap URL to check that file. Free, no signup.
How to find a website's sitemap
Check robots.txt first, then the usual locations. Most sites declare their sitemap in robots.txt with a line like Sitemap: https://example.com/sitemap.xml, and every search engine reads that line. When robots.txt names none, the sitemap is almost always at one of these paths:
| Path | Who uses it |
|---|---|
| /sitemap.xml | The standard location, used by most sites and frameworks |
| /sitemap_index.xml | Yoast SEO and Rank Math on WordPress |
| /wp-sitemap.xml | WordPress 5.5 and newer, without an SEO plugin |
| /sitemap-index.xml | Common on static site generators |
| /post-sitemap.xml, /page-sitemap.xml | Child sitemaps of a WordPress index |
The sitemap finder above does all of this in one go: it reads robots.txt, tries every common location, and lists each sitemap it finds with where it found it. A sitemap that robots.txt declares but that returns an error is listed too, because that broken line is worth fixing. If you own the site, the Sitemaps report in Google Search Console also shows every sitemap you have submitted.
What the sitemap checker tests
The checker downloads the whole file (up to 10 MB) and tests it against the sitemap protocol and Google's own rules, so a sitemap that passes here is one Google can read:
- Format: a <urlset> or <sitemapindex> root with the sitemaps.org namespace, and no unescaped ampersands that break the XML.
- URLs: every <loc> is a full, absolute URL on the sitemap's own host and protocol, under 2,048 characters, listed once.
- Limits: at most 50,000 URLs and 50 MB per file; bigger sites need a sitemap index.
- lastmod: dates in W3C format, none in the future, and not the same date on every URL. Google uses lastmod only when it is consistently accurate.
- The sitemap URL itself: it must answer 200 without redirecting, and robots.txt should list it.
Google ignores <priority> and <changefreq>, so the tester notes them without counting them as errors.
Common sitemap test errors and how to fix them
| What the test finds | Fix |
|---|---|
| HTTP 404 or 5xx | The URL must return 200. Check the path, the SEO plugin setting that publishes the sitemap, and your server logs. |
| HTML page instead of XML | The CMS serves a normal page at that path. Find the real sitemap URL (the finder above) or turn on the plugin's sitemap. |
| Relative or invalid <loc> | Every <loc> needs the full URL with https:// and your domain, not /page. |
| Bare "&" in a URL | Write it as &. One unescaped ampersand makes the whole file invalid XML. |
| URLs on another host | List only URLs of the host the sitemap lives on (www and non-www are different hosts), and only the https version. |
| Same lastmod on every URL | Set lastmod to the date each page really changed, or leave it out. A build date on every URL teaches Google to ignore it. |
| Over 50,000 URLs or 50 MB | Split the file into several sitemaps and list them in a sitemap index. |
No sitemap at all? The free XML sitemap generator crawls your site from the home page and writes a valid sitemap.xml you can download. If robots.txt is the problem, test it with the robots.txt checker.
Sitemap or sitemap index?
A sitemap lists page URLs. A sitemap index lists other sitemaps, which is how sites with more than 50,000 URLs, or with separate files for posts, pages and products, stay within the limits. Both go in robots.txt and in Search Console the same way: submit the index, and Google reads every child. The checker tests an index too and lets you open each child sitemap with one click.
After the sitemap test: get the pages indexed
A valid sitemap tells Google which pages exist. It does not make Google index them, and the Pages report in Search Console often shows sitemap URLs stuck at Discovered or Crawled, currently not indexed. What moves them is asking Google directly with Request Indexing, one URL at a time by hand.
IndexMachine does that for you. It picks up every page in your sitemap and presses Google's own Request Indexing in your Search Console for every page Google hasn't indexed, every day, on autopilot, with your full daily quota on every site. Bing, Yandex, Seznam and Naver get every new URL through unlimited IndexNow. No link farms. Of 1,841 pages IndexMachine requested, 1,418 (77%) were on Google, typically by our first check about 3 days after the request. Sign up free to see which of your pages Google hasn't indexed, or see pricing (lifetime plans from $12.50). If one page still won't get in, the why is my page not indexed checker finds the reason.
FAQ
How do I find the sitemap of a website?
Open the site's robots.txt (example.com/robots.txt) and look for a line that starts with Sitemap:. If there is none, try /sitemap.xml, /sitemap_index.xml and /wp-sitemap.xml. The sitemap finder above checks robots.txt and all the usual locations at once and lists every sitemap it finds.
Where is the sitemap on a WordPress site?
WordPress 5.5 and newer publishes one at /wp-sitemap.xml. Yoast SEO and Rank Math replace it with their own at /sitemap_index.xml, which links to child sitemaps such as /post-sitemap.xml and /page-sitemap.xml.
How do I test my sitemap?
Paste the sitemap URL into the checker above. It reads the whole file and reports errors (relative or broken URLs, unescaped ampersands, over 50,000 URLs) and warnings (other hosts, duplicates, bad or identical lastmod dates). Then submit it in the Sitemaps report of Google Search Console and check that the status says Success.
Why does Search Console say Couldn't fetch for my sitemap?
Google could not download the file: the URL returns an error, redirects, is blocked by robots.txt, or returns an HTML page instead of XML. Run the URL through this checker to see the exact status. A newly submitted sitemap can also show Couldn't fetch for a while before Google processes it.
Does a valid sitemap get my pages indexed?
No. A sitemap helps Google discover your URLs, but Google decides what to index, and many sitemap URLs sit at Discovered, currently not indexed for weeks. IndexMachine requests indexing for every page in your sitemap that Google hasn't indexed, every day, with Google's own Request Indexing in your Search Console.
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