What is a Sitemap Checker?
A broken sitemap fails silently: search engines just stop trusting it, and new pages take longer to be discovered.
This checker fetches the file, confirms it parses as a urlset or sitemap index, counts entries, samples the first URLs, and flags protocol violations like the 50,000-URL limit.
Frequently asked questions
Urlset vs sitemap index?
A urlset lists pages; an index lists other sitemaps. Large sites split into an index because one file caps at 50,000 URLs / 50MB.
My sitemap is valid but pages aren’t indexed: why?
A sitemap is a hint, not a command. Indexing still depends on quality, internal links and crawl budget.
How do search engines find the sitemap?
The robots.txt Sitemap line plus direct submission in Search Console: do both.
Should the sitemap update automatically?
Yes: generate it from your content source at build/publish time, never by hand (this site does exactly that).