is your sitemap right?
paste your address. we find your sitemap, read every sitemap it points to, and open a handful of the pages it lists to see that they work.
free to useno signupresults straight away
how it works
- 1
paste your website
or the address of the sitemap itself, if you know it.
- 2
see what it lists
how many pages, in how many files, with which dates, and what is wrong with the list.
- 3
fix what is off
each problem comes with what to change. run it again until it is clean.
what it checks
- where the sitemap is: in robots.txt, at /sitemap.xml or at /sitemap_index.xml
- that it is a real sitemap, not a web page or an error
- a sitemap index, and the sitemaps inside it
- how many pages are listed, each counted once
- addresses listed twice, on another site, or on http
- dates that are written wrongly or lie in the future
- eight of the listed pages, opened for real: do they load, move on or say noindex
- whether robots.txt points at the sitemap
why a sitemap is worth checking
a sitemap is how new pages get found
Search engines find pages by following links. A new site has few links pointing to it, so pages deep inside it can go unseen for weeks. A sitemap hands over the whole list at once. It does not make a page rank, but a page that is never found can not rank at all.
a broken sitemap fails without telling you
A sitemap is not something visitors see, so nothing looks wrong when it breaks. An address that falls through to the home page, a file that lists nothing, or a build step that stopped updating it can go unnoticed for months.
only list pages you want in search
A sitemap should hold the final address of every page you want listed, and nothing else. Pages that answer 404, redirect somewhere else or carry a noindex tag send mixed signals, and enough of them teach a search engine to trust the list less.
dates are only useful when they are true
The lastmod date tells a crawler which pages changed and are worth another look. Search engines use it only when it proves reliable. A sitemap that stamps every page with today's date on each build gets its dates ignored.
tell crawlers where it is
Submitting a sitemap in Google Search Console reaches Google. A "Sitemap:" line in robots.txt reaches every crawler that reads the file, including Bing and the crawlers behind AI search.
a few quick answers.
Where should my sitemap be?
Most sites put it at /sitemap.xml. It can live at any address, as long as robots.txt has a "Sitemap:" line with its full address, or you submit that address to each search engine yourself.
Does it open every page in my sitemap?
No. It reads the whole list, then opens eight pages picked from across it. That is enough to catch a pattern, like every blog address being wrong, without loading your whole site.
What is a sitemap index?
A sitemap that lists other sitemaps instead of pages. Large sites use one because a single sitemap may hold at most 50,000 addresses. This check reads the index and the first five sitemaps inside it.
Do I need a sitemap for a small site?
A site with a handful of pages that all link to each other will be found without one. A sitemap still helps new pages get noticed sooner, and most site builders and frameworks make one for you.
Do you store my site or the results?
No. Your sitemap and the sampled pages are read once to make the report and nothing about them is saved.
ready? launch it on ShipDesk.dev
your own launch page, a link to your site and a full week on the board. free, and it takes about a minute.
launch yours for free