SEO Tools

Robots.txt / Sitemap Checker

Check your robots.txt file and XML sitemap for errors in seconds. This free tool tells you straight away if you’re accidentally blocking Google from important pages, if your sitemap is missing or broken, or if the two files are contradicting each other.

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Why this matters

Robots.txt and your sitemap are two small files most business owners never look at, and yet a mistake in either one can quietly stop your entire website from being found on Google. It happens more often than you’d think. A developer blocks the whole site during a rebuild and forgets to unblock it. A plugin update resets settings without warning. A sitemap stops updating after a site migration and Google never finds your newer pages.

The frustrating part is that everything still looks completely normal to a visitor. The website works, the pages load, nothing appears broken, but Google may not be crawling or indexing it properly at all. That’s exactly the kind of issue that goes unnoticed for months.

How to use it

Enter your website’s URL
The tool checks your robots.txt file and looks for your XML sitemap
See a clear breakdown of what’s being blocked, what’s allowed, and whether your sitemap is present and valid
Fix any issues flagged and re-check to confirm

What to look out for

Your whole site blocked by accident. A single line, Disallow: /, blocks everything, and it’s a common leftover from a staging or development site that was never removed
Important pages accidentally disallowed, even if the rest of the site is fine
No sitemap listed in robots.txt. Adding a line pointing to your sitemap makes it easier for Google to find
A sitemap that returns an error or hasn’t been updated. If you’ve added new pages since your sitemap was last generated, Google may not know they exist
Robots.txt and sitemap contradicting each other. No point listing a page in your sitemap if robots.txt is also blocking it

Want your whole site’s technical health checked, not just these two files?

Robots.txt and sitemap issues are just one part of technical SEO. Page speed, broken links, duplicate content and crawl errors all affect how well Google can find and rank your site too. If you’d like a proper technical audit of your whole website, our SEO services include exactly that.

FAQ

It’s a small text file that tells search engines which parts of your website they’re allowed to crawl. It sits at yourdomain.co.uk/robots.txt and applies to the whole site.

Google can usually still find your pages by following links, but a sitemap makes it far easier and faster, especially for larger sites or pages that aren’t well linked internally.

Yes. A single incorrect line can block Google from crawling your entire site, which is why it’s worth checking after any major site change, rebuild, or migration.