Validate an XML sitemap: fetch errors, the 50,000 URL and 50 MB limits, and bad loc, lastmod and priority values.
How to use the Sitemap validator
- Enter the sitemap URL.
- Review errors and warnings.
- Fix them and resubmit in Search Console.
What makes a good sitemap
Only canonical, indexable URLs that return 200, absolute https URLs, and an accurate lastmod. Leave out redirects, noindex pages and 404s.
Reading the verdict
The pill reads Valid, Valid with warnings or Invalid, next to the URL count, file size and whether it is an index or a URL set. Errors make it invalid: more than 50,000 URLs, a file over 50 MB, a loc that isn't a full URL, a lastmod that isn't a valid date, a priority outside 0.0–1.0, a changefreq that isn't one of always, hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, yearly or never, or a child sitemap that doesn't return 200. Warnings are worth fixing but won't stop Google reading the file: URLs on another host, http URLs in an https sitemap, duplicate URLs, lastmod dates in the future, or no lastmod at all.
How to fix the common ones
Relative locs (/pricing): output full URLs including https and the domain. Wrong host: www and non-www count as different hosts, so use the one your canonicals use. Future or identical lastmod dates: set lastmod from the real content update time, not the build time. Duplicates: usually trailing-slash or parameter variants; list only the canonical form. A failing child: fix or remove it from the index. Then resubmit the sitemap in Search Console.