Sitemap Finder
Enter any domain. The finder reads its robots.txt, probes nine common sitemap paths, and reports every sitemap it can actually parse.
Where sitemaps actually live
There is no rule that a sitemap must sit at /sitemap.xml. The protocol only requires that a sitemap covers URLs at or below its own directory, which is why real sites scatter them across a handful of conventions.
- /sitemap.xml is the default convention, and what most crawlers try first.
- /sitemap_index.xml is what Yoast SEO and Rank Math produce on WordPress.
- /wp-sitemap.xml is WordPress core, from version 5.5 onwards, when no SEO plugin overrides it.
- /sitemap.xml.gz is a gzipped sitemap, common on large catalogues.
- /post-sitemap.xml and /page-sitemap.xml are child files that some plugins expose directly.
- /sitemaps/sitemap.xml appears when a CDN or static host puts generated files in a subdirectory.
Why the tool parses instead of just checking status codes
Plenty of sites return a 200 for any path, serving the app shell or a styled 404 page. Checking the status code alone would report a sitemap at every path tried. This finder parses each response and only counts it when the file actually contains a urlset or sitemapindex element.
How to find a sitemap by hand
- 01
Read robots.txt first
Open example.com/robots.txt and search for a line starting with Sitemap. This is the declared, authoritative answer when it exists.
- 02
Try the standard paths
In order: /sitemap.xml, /sitemap_index.xml, /wp-sitemap.xml. Between them they cover the large majority of sites.
- 03
Check Search Console
If it is your own site, Indexing then Sitemaps lists every sitemap Google knows about, including ones never declared in robots.txt.
- 04
Search the index
A site: query restricted to filetype xml occasionally surfaces sitemaps at unusual paths.
- 05
Declare what you find
Once you know the URL, put it in robots.txt. That is the fix that makes every future search unnecessary.
What to do once you have found it
- Validate the file against the sitemaps.org protocol, to catch namespace, encoding, and size problems.
- Extract every URL into a CSV, following any sitemap index down through its children.
- Crawl the URLs inside it to find dead links, redirects, and noindex pages the sitemap still declares.
- Build a visual tree to see the site structure the sitemap describes.
- Test the robots.txt itself, to confirm crawlers are not blocked from the pages the sitemap lists.
If there is no sitemap at all
Small sites with clean internal linking often get crawled perfectly well without one. Sitemaps matter most when a site is large, when pages are poorly linked, or when content changes faster than crawlers naturally return. If yours falls into any of those, the sitemap generator will build one from a live crawl.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I find a website's sitemap?
Start with robots.txt at example.com/robots.txt and look for a line beginning with Sitemap. If there is none, try example.com/sitemap.xml and example.com/sitemap_index.xml. This tool does both automatically, plus seven more common paths.
Which locations does the finder check?
It reads every Sitemap directive in robots.txt, then probes /sitemap.xml, /sitemap_index.xml, /sitemap-index.xml, /sitemap.xml.gz, /wp-sitemap.xml, /sitemap/sitemap.xml, /sitemaps/sitemap.xml, /post-sitemap.xml, and /page-sitemap.xml. Each candidate is fetched and parsed, so a path that returns a soft 404 HTML page is not counted as a hit.
Why does robots.txt matter for finding sitemaps?
The Sitemap directive is the only universal way to declare a sitemap. Google can also learn about one through Search Console, but Bing, AI crawlers, and every third-party tool depend on robots.txt. A sitemap that only Google knows about is invisible to everything else.
What is the WordPress sitemap URL?
WordPress 5.5 and later generates one at /wp-sitemap.xml. Yoast SEO replaces it with /sitemap_index.xml, and Rank Math uses the same path. The finder checks all of these, so it works regardless of which plugin a site runs.
The finder found nothing. What now?
Either the site has no sitemap, or it lives at a non-standard path that only Search Console knows about. Generate one with our sitemap generator, upload it to your web root, and add the Sitemap line to robots.txt so every crawler can find it.
It found a sitemap that robots.txt does not declare. Is that a problem?
It is a missed opportunity rather than an error. Google will usually still find it through Search Console, but other crawlers will not. Adding one line to robots.txt fixes it.
Can I find a competitor's sitemap this way?
Yes. Sitemaps are public files by design. Once you have the URL, the sitemap extractor will give you their full URL inventory as a CSV.
Other sitemap tools
XML Sitemap Generator
Crawl any website and generate a valid XML sitemap you can download and submit. No signup, no software to install.
Use toolXML Sitemap Validator
Test any XML sitemap against the sitemaps.org protocol. Catches namespace errors, bad lastmod dates, size limits, and cross-domain URLs.
Use toolSitemap Crawler
Crawl every URL your sitemap declares and find the dead links, redirects, noindex pages, and canonical conflicts hiding inside it.
Use toolSitemap URL Extractor
Pull every URL out of a sitemap or sitemap index and download the list as CSV, TXT, or JSON. Handles nested indexes and gzipped files.
Use toolVisual Sitemap Generator
Turn any site into a visual tree of its structure. See how deep your pages sit and which sections carry the most URLs.
Use toolAudit discovery across your whole site
CrawlRaven checks sitemaps, robots.txt, and crawl access alongside 200+ other technical factors, then joins it all to your Search Console data so you can see what Google actually found.