Sitemap Checker
Test any site's XML sitemap: find it, see whether robots.txt points to it, and check that the pages it lists load and are open to search and AI engines.
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Understanding XML sitemaps
Your XML sitemap is the list you hand to search and AI engines that says "here are the pages I want you to find." Without one, crawlers find pages only by following links, which is slower, and pages that few other pages link to can be missed.
How do I check if a website has a sitemap?
Load the site's /robots.txt and look for a line starting with Sitemap:, or try yoursite.com/sitemap.xml in a browser. WordPress sites commonly use /sitemap_index.xml or /wp-sitemap.xml. Shopify and Squarespace generate one at /sitemap.xml automatically. This checker does both for any site, starting from the Sitemap line in robots.txt.
Why does my sitemap need to be in robots.txt?
When you add a "Sitemap:" line to your robots.txt file, any crawler that reads your robots.txt immediately knows where your page list lives. Without it, crawlers have to guess at the address, or find it some other way. It is a one-line addition that helps every new crawler that visits your site.
Will adding a sitemap get my pages indexed faster?
It helps search engines find your pages, but it is not a switch. Google calls a submitted sitemap a hint: it lists the pages you want crawled, and Google decides when to crawl them. Submit it in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools anyway, because both show you when they last read it and any errors they hit.
How many URLs should my sitemap have?
It depends on the size of your site, but every URL in it should be intentional. A 10-page service business might have 8 sitemap entries. An e-commerce store might have thousands. What matters is that every page you want found is listed, and pages you have hidden from search, or that redirect somewhere else, are left out.
What if my sitemap has incorrect URLs?
Google crawls the addresses exactly as you list them. An http:// address on an https site, the other www version, or an old address that redirects sends the crawler on a detour, or to a dead end. Every address in your sitemap should be the final version of the page. This checker flags each of these.
What Google and Bing say about sitemaps
In their own words, from their documentation, with what each one means for your site.
List the exact address each page loads on
Full address, same https, same www choice, and the version of the page you want people to land on. Google crawls what you list, as you list it.
Google: "Use fully-qualified, absolute URLs in your sitemaps. Google will attempt to crawl your URLs exactly as listed."
Google: "Google generally shows the canonical URLs in its search results, which you can influence with sitemaps."
Source: Google Search Central, Build and submit a sitemap (updated July 8, 2026) Point robots.txt at your sitemap
One line in robots.txt tells every crawler that reads it where your page list lives.
Bing: "Include the sitemap location in your site's robots.txt file for automatic discovery."
Source: Bing Webmaster Blog, Keeping Content Discoverable with Sitemaps in AI Powered Search (July 31, 2025) Change the last-modified date only when the page changes
Both engines use the date to decide what to crawl again, and only when it is true. A sitemap that stamps every page with today's date is not telling them anything.
Google: "Google uses the <lastmod> value if it's consistently and verifiably (for example by comparing to the last modification of the page) accurate."
Source: Google Search Central, Build and submit a sitemap (updated July 8, 2026) Bing: "Avoid setting lastmod to the time your sitemap was generated unless the content on that URL was actually updated."
Source: Bing Webmaster Blog, Keeping Content Discoverable with Sitemaps in AI Powered Search (July 31, 2025) Priority and change frequency do nothing
No need to tune them. Both engines say they skip those two tags.
Google: "Google ignores <priority> and <changefreq> values."
Source: Google Search Central, Build and submit a sitemap (updated July 8, 2026) Bing: "Optional sitemap tags like changefreq and priority are ignored by Bing and do not influence how your content is crawled or ranked."
Source: Bing Webmaster Blog, Keeping Content Discoverable with Sitemaps in AI Powered Search (July 31, 2025) Submitting it is a hint, not a guarantee
Submit it anyway. Search Console shows when Google last read the file and any errors, and Bing fetches a submitted sitemap straight away.
Google: "Keep in mind that submitting a sitemap is merely a hint: it doesn't guarantee that Google will download the sitemap or use the sitemap for crawling URLs on the site."
Google: "This will allow you to see when Googlebot accessed the sitemap and also potential processing errors."
Source: Google Search Central, Build and submit a sitemap (updated July 8, 2026) Bing: "Bing will attempt to fetch it immediately upon submission."
Source: Bing Webmaster Blog, Keeping Content Discoverable with Sitemaps in AI Powered Search (July 31, 2025) What it means for AI search
Bing ties the sitemap's dates to how fast its AI answers, Copilot included, pick up a change. Google says its AI features need nothing extra: a page has to be indexed and eligible for an ordinary search result first.
Bing: "For AI powered search engines like Bing, freshness signals directly influence how quickly updates are reflected in search results and AI generated answers."
Source: Bing Webmaster Blog, Keeping Content Discoverable with Sitemaps in AI Powered Search (July 31, 2025) Google: "There are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, nor other special optimizations necessary."
Google: "To be eligible to be shown as a supporting link in AI Overviews or AI Mode, a page must be indexed and eligible to be shown in Google Search with a snippet, fulfilling the Search technical requirements."
Source: Google Search Central, AI features and your website (updated December 10, 2025) One file holds up to 50,000 pages
Bigger sites split theirs into several files listed in a sitemap index. Most business sites never get close.
Google: "All formats limit a single sitemap to 50MB (uncompressed) or 50,000 URLs."
Source: Google Search Central, Build and submit a sitemap (updated July 8, 2026)
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