Free Sitemap Validator
Just like every good town or city needs a map to direct citizens to buildings, residences, parks, and public services, a good website has a sitemap to give search engines clear directions on how the site is structured.
What is a Sitemap?
A website’s sitemap – also known as an XML sitemap – maps out your website in a clear and organized structure so that Google, Bing, and other search engines can understand how your website is organized when crawling different pages.
It’s designed to simplify your website for search bots.
By analyzing individual pages and keywords using Google Analytics, Google Search Console (reviewing accelerated mobile pages), Core Web Vitals (reviewing page speed) and other keyword research tools, we create a detailed roadmap that is industry agnostic and fully-repeatable for ranking in search engines.
Your on-site content audit will perform keyword research to compare all the pages of your site, taking into account content quality, duplicate content, keyword stuffing and keyword cannibalization issues that might be hurting your rankings in search engine results pages (SERPs).
Understand impact of site-wide and individual web pages with a comprehensive look at backlink diversity, link velocity, anchor text variability, TLD diversity, internal links and internal link structure.
Website Audits Showcase Technical Deficiencies & Behavior Analytics to Improve On-page & Off-page Website Health
Our SEO services include a full audit report will provide you with a detailed plan of attack for fixing specific on and off-site errors and deficits as well as provide suggestions for internal linking and off-site link procurement for immediate keyword growth.
Why Your Website Needs a Sitemap?
A sitemap is about more than friendly convenience. If you have a new website, a website with lots of pages, or a website with dynamic pages, a sitemap plays an integral role in your search rankings. URLs that are included on the sitemap get crawl priority. And while you’ll never been penalized for not having an XML sitemap, it’s considered a very essential and fundamental aspect of modern SEO.
Ultimately, you can decide whether or not to create an XML sitemap for your domain. Furthermore, you can choose which URLs to include.
If you’d rather not have visitors land on a specific URL, you can leave it off. (Though if you’re serious about keeping visitors away, you’ll need to add a “noindex, follow” tag. Google still indexes URLs that aren’t included on sitemaps.)
We find the best content assets on your website, worthy of inbound mentions and backlinks. If you don’t have any or your content is lacking, our editorial team can help to beef-up your content assets.
We source publishers with relevance and authority and pitch them content ideas that include backlinks and references back to your website.
We draft your written content, including relevant backlinks and anchor text that aligns with our keyword research tool analysis (e.g. title tags, meta tags, keyword density, etc.). We then get publisher approval to get the content published.
You receive regular backlink reports included in your standard monthly SEO work reports.
Google and other search engines work by using math & artificial intelligence. Our method for building links ensures we are solving the math equation while avoiding black hat strategies so you can rank for national and local terms.
Trusted by over 5,000 clients and SEO agencies, our backlink-focused SEO services are the best in the business. We can vary how aggressive we build links based on any budget and any scale.
Sitemap Tips and Best Practices
- A sitemap should not be larger than 10MB.
- A sitemap can only contain a maximum of 50,000 URLs.
- If your sitemap is larger than 10MB and/or has more than 50,000 URLs, you’ll need to create multiple sitemap files and organize them using a sitemap index file.
- It’s strongly suggested that you place your sitemap in the root directory of your website. (There are some exceptions – like security permission issues – but this is the general rule of thumb.)
- All URLs in a sitemap must be associated with the same domain. For instance, a sitemap for example.com can’t include URLs from blog.example.com. Each would need its own sitemap to be considered valid.
Let search engines know about your sitemap by submitting it directly to them, or by adding the sitemap’s location to your robots.txt file.
By analyzing individual pages and keywords using Google Analytics, Google Search Console (reviewing accelerated mobile pages), Core Web Vitals (reviewing page speed) and other keyword research tools, we create a detailed roadmap that is industry agnostic and fully-repeatable for ranking in search engines.
Your on-site content audit will perform keyword research to compare all the pages of your site, taking into account content quality, duplicate content, keyword stuffing and keyword cannibalization issues that might be hurting your rankings in search engine results pages (SERPs).
Understand impact of site-wide and individual web pages with a comprehensive look at backlink diversity, link velocity, anchor text variability, TLD diversity, internal links and internal link structure.
Website Audits Showcase Technical Deficiencies & Behavior Analytics to Improve On-page & Off-page Website Health
Our SEO services include a full audit report will provide you with a detailed plan of attack for fixing specific on and off-site errors and deficits as well as provide suggestions for internal linking and off-site link procurement for immediate keyword growth.
The Problem With Sitemap Errors
Sitemap errors can be costly – particularly if you’re unaware of the mistakes. Common sitemap errors include: empty sitemap, compression error, incorrect namespace, or HTTP error.
When errors are present, it’s harder for search bots to crawl your pages. Subsequently, this makes it more difficult to index pages. And when pages aren’t indexed properly, Google rankings slip, organic traffic diminishes, and conversions go down.
What Is a Sitemap Validator?
Your sitemap XML file is a concise list of all URLs of your website, and how they connect to each other. Though not specifically required by Google, it’s helpful to upload a sitemap to Google directly for search engine indexing purposes. No one has ever gotten penalized for not uploading an XML sitemap but uploading this file can facilitate faster indexing and more accurate listings.
A sitemap validator is a tool that helps you analyze your XML sitemap, allowing you to correct any errors and make sure your website is represented accurately.
These are some of the best practices a sitemap validator will check for:
- Size. Ideally, your sitemap will be under 10 MB.
- URLs. Your sitemap should have 50,000 URLs or fewer.
- Domain relevance. All URLs in the sitemap should be part of the same domain.
- Formatting. Your XML sitemap needs to be readable to Google.
- Placement. XML sitemaps should be included in your root directory and uploaded to Google directly.
We find the best content assets on your website, worthy of inbound mentions and backlinks. If you don’t have any or your content is lacking, our editorial team can help to beef-up your content assets.
We source publishers with relevance and authority and pitch them content ideas that include backlinks and references back to your website.
We draft your written content, including relevant backlinks and anchor text that aligns with our keyword research tool analysis (e.g. title tags, meta tags, keyword density, etc.). We then get publisher approval to get the content published.
You receive regular backlink reports included in your standard monthly SEO work reports.
Google and other search engines work by using math & artificial intelligence. Our method for building links ensures we are solving the math equation while avoiding black hat strategies so you can rank for national and local terms.
Trusted by over 5,000 clients and SEO agencies, our backlink-focused SEO services are the best in the business. We can vary how aggressive we build links based on any budget and any scale.
Why Is a Sitemap Validator Valuable?
Flag and correct errors
This is your chance to notice and correct any errors preventing your XML sitemap from doing its job.
Ensure readability
Are you sure that Google can read your formatting and understand your sitemap in total? A sitemap validator will help you guarantee this.
Get peace of mind
Some webmasters are unsure whether their site maps are accurate or readable. This will help you get the peace of mind you need.
Work With SEO.co
Are you looking to scale your organic traffic with the highest quality content and links you can get?
Contact SEO.co today to learn why thousands of other businesses and entrepreneurs have trusted us with their websites over the years.
