Where does the checker look for sitemaps?

In the Sitemap lines of your robots.txt first, then at the standard locations such as /sitemap.xml and /sitemap_index.xml. Sitemap index files are followed to their child sitemaps.

Should every URL in a sitemap return 200?

Yes. A sitemap should list the final, indexable version of each page. URLs that redirect or return errors waste crawl attention and make Google trust the sitemap less.

Google uses lastmod when it is consistently accurate. If every URL carries the same date, or dates change on every build without the content changing, the value is usually ignored.

Do I need to submit the sitemap to Google?

Listing it in robots.txt lets any crawler find it. Submitting it in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools also shows you how many listed URLs each engine has indexed.

Free tools

Sitemap checker

Enter a domain. We find its sitemaps, follow sitemap index files, count the URLs, summarise lastmod dates and spot-check 10 listed URLs to see whether they return 200.

What a healthy sitemap looks like

It is declared in robots.txt with a full URL.
It parses as XML, and index files point to sitemaps that exist.
Every listed URL is on your own host and returns 200 without redirecting.
Pages you do not want indexed, such as tag archives or noindex pages, are left out.
lastmod dates change when the page content changes, not on every deploy.

Common problems this finds

A sitemap that lists the www version of pages while the site redirects to the bare domain (or the reverse). Old URLs that now redirect. Sitemaps that exist but are not declared anywhere. Plugins that stamp every URL with today's date. Each of these slows down how quickly new pages get crawled.

After the sitemap

A good sitemap gets pages discovered; it does not get them indexed. If Search Console shows pages as “Discovered, currently not indexed”, the usual causes are thin content and weak internal links. The meta tag checker and redirect checker cover the next two things to look at, and a free site analysis covers the rest.

Questions

Where does the checker look for sitemaps?: In the Sitemap lines of your robots.txt first, then at the standard locations such as /sitemap.xml and /sitemap_index.xml. Sitemap index files are followed to their child sitemaps.
Should every URL in a sitemap return 200?: Yes. A sitemap should list the final, indexable version of each page. URLs that redirect or return errors waste crawl attention and make Google trust the sitemap less.
Does lastmod matter?: Google uses lastmod when it is consistently accurate. If every URL carries the same date, or dates change on every build without the content changing, the value is usually ignored.
Do I need to submit the sitemap to Google?: Listing it in robots.txt lets any crawler find it. Submitting it in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools also shows you how many listed URLs each engine has indexed.

More free tools

llms.txt generator

Reads your sitemap and page titles and drafts an llms.txt file you can edit and download.

Robots.txt generator

Build a robots.txt that allows AI search crawlers and blocks AI training crawlers, with a WordPress preset.

AI crawler checker

Shows which AI crawlers your robots.txt lets in: GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended and more.

Meta tag checker

Title, meta description, canonical, robots, H1 and Open Graph tags for up to 10 pages, with length checks and duplicates.

Redirect checker

Tests http, https, www and non-www versions of a site and shows every redirect hop, so you can see if they all land on one URL.

Schema markup generator

Build JSON-LD for Organization, LocalBusiness, FAQ, Product and Article pages, ready to paste into your site.

Keyword density checker

Word count and the most repeated words and phrases in your text, plus how often a target keyword appears. Runs in your browser.

SERP snippet preview

See how your title and meta description may look in Google on desktop and mobile, and where they get cut off.

Open Graph checker

og:title, og:description, og:image and twitter:card tags for up to 5 pages, with a preview of the shared link card.

H1 checker

The H1 heading of up to 10 pages, flagging pages with none or more than one.

Canonical tag checker

Whether each page's canonical points to itself, is missing, or tells Google to index a different URL.

Hreflang checker

Hreflang tags, language and region codes, x-default and return links between language versions.

Core Web Vitals checker

Real-user LCP, INP and CLS from the Chrome UX Report plus a Lighthouse lab test, on mobile or desktop.