XML Sitemap Inspector
Validate sitemap structure, count URLs, and check changefreq and priority values
Sitemap Analyzer
How to Use the XML Sitemap Inspector
- Open your sitemap URL in a browser — usually https://yoursite.com/sitemap.xml or /sitemap_index.xml for Yoast/Rankmath.
- In Firefox: the raw XML is displayed directly — select all (Ctrl+A) and copy. In Chrome: right-click → View Page Source, then copy the XML.
- Paste into the text area and click Inspect Sitemap.
- Review the report: total URLs, missing lastmod dates, invalid priority values, and the first 20 URLs listed for spot-checking.
XML Sitemap Best Practices for SEO
An XML sitemap is your direct communication channel with Google’s crawlers. It tells Googlebot exactly which pages exist and optionally, when they were last modified. The lastmod date is particularly valuable — Google uses it to prioritize re-crawling pages that have been updated. Setting accurate lastmod dates (not artificially inflating them) improves crawl efficiency.
The maximum recommended sitemap size is 50,000 URLs or 50 MB (uncompressed). Larger sites should split into multiple sitemaps referenced from a sitemap index file. Only include URLs you want indexed — exclude no-index pages, paginated pages (beyond page 1), and near-duplicate content pages. Quality over quantity in sitemap inclusion improves Googlebot’s efficiency and your overall crawl coverage ratio.