Sitemap Checker
Enter your domain. We look for your sitemap in the usual places and check whether search engines are told where it is.
Free, no sign-up, no email needed for this check.
What a sitemap is for
It is a list of the pages you want found, in a format search engines read directly. It does not make pages rank. It makes them discoverable, which is the step before ranking.
When it actually changes something
On a new site with few links pointing at it, and on any site where pages are not reachable within a few clicks from the homepage. Those are the pages a crawler otherwise never reaches.
The half nobody does
Having the file is not enough. Robots.txt should name it, and it should be submitted once in Search Console. Without that, you are relying on the crawler guessing the filename.
Common questions
Where should my sitemap live?
Conventionally at /sitemap.xml. It can live elsewhere as long as robots.txt points to it.
Should every page be in the sitemap?
Only pages you actually want indexed. Listing a page you have set to noindex sends two contradictory signals.
How often should it update?
Whenever pages are added or removed. Most content systems regenerate it automatically.