Prepare a clean XML sitemap

Start with a sitemap file

Fetch a public sitemap URL or paste XML from your generator. This tool checks URL sitemaps and sitemap indexes, rather than arbitrary XML schemas. Paste the uncompressed XML if a compressed file cannot be fetched.

Review URLs and dates

Fix malformed XML and missing locations first. Review duplicates, URL fragments, host differences and optional date fields. Use the real modification date when you provide lastmod, rather than changing every date on every build.

Check the site as well

The validator checks the submitted file, not the HTTP status or canonical URL of every listed page. For an index, it does not fetch child sitemaps. Review those separately before submission.

An example to work from

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
  <url><loc>https://example.com/about</loc></url>
</urlset>

Before you finish

Confirm the URLs are the pages you intend to publish. Valid XML does not guarantee crawling or indexing.