Google XML sitemap validator: Validate XML sitemaps for free
About our Google XML sitemap validator
It's a good idea to check for errors in your XML file and validate the sitemap before you submit to Google. Issues with a sitemap can swiftly turn into issues with search engine optimization, our Google XML sitemap validator and checker ensures you avoid that.
How to use our XML sitemap tester tool
It's as easy as 1-2-3 to use our sitemap tester.
- 1.
- Enter the existing XML sitemap file URL into the sitemap validator
- 2.
- Give the “validate” button a click to validate sitemap
- 3.
- In a matter of seconds our Google sitemap XML validator will have your results
💡 Pro tip: you’ll want to make sure you set your sitemap XML priority, that’s something our sitemap maker can help you with.
What if the XML sitemap checker gives a negative result?
Error messages happen and ignoring them can put you at a real disadvantage in the search results. Issues with an XML sitemap can make crawling your site difficult which may lead to poor indexing of your site overall and potentially vital pages (and their content) going totally unindexed.
Here are a number of common errors you may encounter and how to correct them:
| Error | Solution |
|---|---|
| Invalid namespace | The <urlset> tag holds the namespace, appearing as “xmlns”, which specifies the protocol standard that's being used and the accompanying XML schema. In layman's terms, defining the namespace means you're telling Google what sort of elements and attributes appear in your sitemap and their tags. It's difficult to pinpoint why this issue arises as it could be from a plugin so fixing it is very case-by-case and done manually. |
| Unsupported format | This also arises from the namespace issue. If the protocol being used for your sitemap is incorrect, you'll have unsupported formats that crop up because Google is expecting one thing and getting another. You can also get this error if your XML attributes aren't all enclosed in the same type of quotes (‘ or”). Google also specifies they must be straight, not curled quotes. |
| Too many URLs | 50,000 URLs is the max, if you have more than that, first of all, impressive, secondly, you're going to need to generate multiple sitemaps. |
| HTTP error codes | No matter the code, most often 401 and 404, if search engine crawlers come across them when trying to download your sitemap, they won't be able to process it. The solution is to confirm the xml sitemap is in fact at the location you stated it was and then resubmit it. |
Ideally your report would come back with no issues detected, structural or otherwise, and you can just submit the sitemap. Since that’s not always the case, think of this as a two-step process; 1) generate sitemap 2) check sitemap.
To quickly create that XML sitemap, just pop over to your XML sitemap generator.
If it's an HTML sitemap – which users will interact with – or a visual sitemap – which you'll use internally for website planning – understanding how to create a sitemap properly) makes a big difference.
Frequently asked questions
Will this tool work as a Bing sitemap validator?
It will indeed! Bing accepts sitemaps in a number of formats; RSS 2.0, Atom 0.3 & 1.0, plain text file and XML. Given that, you can use our sitemap.xml validator to ensure you submit an error-free file to Bing and any other search engine for that matter.
Will this also work as a Google video sitemap validator?
Yep, as long as the namespace of your sitemap is correct and therefore utilizing the correct tags for a video sitemap, you're good to go. It's not just for video sitemaps, our Google sitemap validator can test and check image and Google News sitemaps as well.