Paste an XML sitemap URL — we'll fetch it, expand sitemap indexes, validate every URL, and optionally ping Bing, Yandex and Seznam via IndexNow.
Free · No sign-up · We don't store your sitemap or API key
We download the sitemap server-side, follow sitemap-index files, and decompress .gz if needed.
Each URL is checked for protocol, host, duplicates, query tracking, casing, and missing lastmod.
Optionally batch-submit eligible URLs to api.indexnow.org — Bing, Yandex and Seznam.
About the tool
IndexNow is a lightweight, open protocol — originally proposed by Microsoft Bing and Yandex — that lets website owners push a list of new or updated URLs straight to participating search engines, instead of waiting for the next crawl. A single submission to api.indexnow.org is shared with Bing, Yandex, Seznam, Naver and Yep, so one ping reaches the whole network.
An XML sitemap is still the authoritative inventory of every URL you want indexed, but it's a passive document — search engines decide when to revisit it. IndexNow flips that around: it's an active push. Combining the two — a clean sitemap plus IndexNow notifications for fresh changes — is the fastest way to get newly published or updated pages discovered on the search engines that support it.
This free tool wraps both steps into one workflow. Paste a sitemap URL, and we'll fetch it (server-side, with SSRF protection and response-size limits), expand sitemap indexes, decompress .gz files, and run every URL through validation. You can then submit the clean list to IndexNow in batches of 500 — without ever storing your API key.
How to use it
Drop in the full URL of your sitemap or sitemap index (e.g. https://example.com/sitemap.xml). We'll fetch it server-side with a 15-second timeout and an 8 MB response cap. Gzipped sitemaps are auto-decompressed.
We classify each URL as valid, warning or error, and surface duplicates, external domains, insecure HTTP, tracking parameters, uppercase paths, missing lastmod, and more. Filter, search, and export the table to CSV.
Add your IndexNow API key (8–128 characters), confirm your host, and submit. We filter out URLs that don't match your declared host, split the rest into 500-URL batches, and show the HTTP status of every batch.
Before you submit
IndexNow needs to verify that you own the domain you're submitting. That works by hosting a small text file at the root of your site containing your API key. You only need to do this once per domain.
Visit bing.com/indexnow/getstarted and click Generate API Key. You'll get a random string (8–128 chars, a–z A–Z 0–9 and hyphens) plus a downloadable <key>.txt file. The file's contents are simply the key itself.
Most stacks have a folder served as the site root — Next.js uses /public, WordPress uses /wp-content/uploads or the site root, Shopify uses the theme's Assets folder. Save the downloaded <your-key>.txt file there and deploy.
Open https://yourdomain.com/<your-key>.txt in an incognito tab — it should return the key as plain text with no redirects, no 404, and no HTML wrapper. If IndexNow can't fetch this file it will reject every submission with HTTP 403.
Drop the key string (not the file URL) into the API key field, confirm the host, and submit. We never store or log it — it's only used in the outbound call to api.indexnow.org.
Tip: don't rotate the key unless you have to — Bing and Yandex cache the verification, and a new key means a new file plus a short re-verification window.
Why use this tool?
Browsers refuse cross-origin XML fetches, so this validator has to live behind an API. We do that for you — with SSRF guards, a per-fetch timeout, and a response-size limit so you can't crash the tool with a huge sitemap.
Many large sites use a top-level sitemap that links to child sitemaps. We follow up to ten child sitemaps and merge the URL set, so you get one combined validation pass.
We flag duplicates, external domains, HTTP, tracking params, fragments and uppercase paths — the things that quietly burn your crawl budget and produce duplicate-content signals.
Your API key never touches our database, never appears in logs, and is only used in the outbound request to api.indexnow.org. Submissions are split into 500-URL batches with per-batch status.
FAQs
IndexNow is an open protocol that lets websites instantly tell participating search engines when content is added, updated or deleted. Microsoft Bing, Yandex, Seznam, Naver and Yep all consume IndexNow signals, and a submission to any one endpoint is shared across the network.
No. Sitemaps remain the canonical, full inventory of your URLs. IndexNow is a push notification for fresh changes — use both. Google does not currently consume IndexNow, so sitemaps and the Search Console URL Inspection API are still required for fast Google indexation.
You generate any random string between 8 and 128 characters using a–z, A–Z, 0–9 and hyphens. Host that exact string in a plain-text file at the root of your domain — e.g. https://example.com/your-key.txt — so search engines can verify ownership before accepting your submissions.
No. Your key is sent server-side to api.indexnow.org for the submission only. We never log full keys, never store them in a database, and never persist them between requests.
The IndexNow specification allows up to 10,000 URLs per request. We split larger lists into batches of 500 so a single failure does not affect every URL, and we cap parsed sitemaps at 10,000 URLs to keep this free tool fast.
Each URL is checked for: valid HTTP/HTTPS protocol, the URL matches the sitemap's root host, no localhost or private IPs, no duplicate entries, no tracking query parameters (utm_*, gclid, fbclid…), no uppercase characters in the path, missing or invalid lastmod values, fragments (#…), HTTP vs HTTPS, and overall URL length.
Common causes: the URL returns 4xx/5xx, the response is not valid XML, the file is gzipped without a .gz extension, the host blocks our user-agent, or the host resolves to a private/localhost IP (we block those for security). Try opening the URL in an incognito browser to confirm it's publicly reachable.
Yes — completely free, no sign-up. We apply a short per-IP cooldown to keep the service responsive for everyone. If you need to validate hundreds of sitemaps, contact us and we'll help.
IndexNow does not affect Google rankings — Google doesn't consume it. What IndexNow does is shorten discovery time on Bing/Yandex/Seznam for new or updated URLs, which can improve traffic from those engines and any AI products built on Bing's index (including Copilot and ChatGPT search).
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