DEV Community: Rajiv khanduja

I Built a Chrome Extension to Validate XML Sitemaps and Find Broken URLs

Rajiv khanduja — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 07:55:16 +0000

I Built a Chrome Extension to Validate XML Sitemaps and Find Broken URLs

While working with websites, I noticed that validating an XML sitemap can become surprisingly tedious once it contains hundreds or thousands of URLs.

You can open the sitemap, inspect the XML, and check individual URLs — but that doesn't scale very well.

So I built a small Chrome extension to make this process faster.

What does it do?

The extension takes an XML sitemap and checks the URLs contained inside it.

It reports HTTP responses such as:

✅ 200 — URL is reachable
↪️ 301 / 302 — URL redirects
❌ 404 — URL not found
⚠️ 4xx — client errors
⚠️ 5xx — server errors

This makes it easier to identify URLs that may need attention during a technical SEO audit.

Why build a Chrome extension?

I wanted something lightweight for quick checks.

For a full website audit, a crawler makes sense. But sometimes you already have the sitemap and simply want to answer:

"Are the URLs inside this sitemap actually working?"

For that use case, I wanted something that could run directly from the browser.

Example workflow

The workflow is intentionally simple:

XML Sitemap
     ↓
Parse sitemap XML
     ↓
Extract URLs
     ↓
Check HTTP responses
     ↓
Group results
     ↓
Review problematic URLs

For larger sitemaps, the extension processes the URLs and gives you a summary instead of requiring you to inspect them individually.

Who is it useful for?

I built it mainly with these users in mind:

SEO professionals
Technical SEO developers
Web developers
Website owners
SEO agencies
People maintaining large websites

What I want to improve

This is still an evolving project.

Some features I'm considering are:

Better sitemap index support
More detailed URL diagnostics
Canonical URL checks
Indexability checks
Exporting results
More detailed error reporting
Performance improvements for very large sitemaps

I'd especially like feedback from developers and SEO professionals who regularly work with XML sitemaps.

Try it

The extension is free and available on the Chrome Web Store:

https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/xml-sitemap-validator-che/oelcikmlggfcljegdlmjfdpflmcdkdhk

If you work with XML sitemaps, I'd love to know:

What checks would you want a sitemap validator to perform?

I built a Chrome Extension to validate sitemap.xml in one click — here's why and how

Rajiv khanduja — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 03:25:13 +0000

The itch I had to scratch

Every time I ran a technical SEO audit, I'd end up doing the same manual dance: copy the sitemap URL, paste it into an online validator, wait, get back a wall of output, squint at it.

It felt like a solved problem that hadn't actually been solved for people who live in the browser.

So I built Sitemap XML Validator — a Chrome Extension that validates your sitemap.xml right inside Chrome, for free.

What it does

Parses any sitemap.xml URL you open in Chrome
Detects malformed XML, missing tags, and structural errors
Returns results instantly inside the extension panel
No account, no upload, no waiting

Who it's for

Devs doing pre-launch QA
SEO professionals running technical audits
Anyone managing a site with a sitemap

The technical side (quick overview)

The extension reads the active tab's URL, fetches the sitemap content, and runs an XML parse + validation pass. Errors and warnings are categorised and surfaced in a clean summary view.

It's intentionally lightweight — no background tracking, no data sent anywhere, no bloat.

Try it

It's live on the Chrome Web Store now, completely free.

Would love feedback from the dev community — especially if you've built anything similar or have thoughts on what other checks would be useful. Drop a comment!

Built as a side project. All feedback welcome.

I built a Chrome Extension to validate sitemap.xml in one click — here's why and how

Rajiv khanduja — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 03:25:13 +0000

The itch I had to scratch

Every time I ran a technical SEO audit, I'd end up doing the same manual dance: copy the sitemap URL, paste it into an online validator, wait, get back a wall of output, squint at it.

It felt like a solved problem that hadn't actually been solved for people who live in the browser.

So I built Sitemap XML Validator — a Chrome Extension that validates your sitemap.xml right inside Chrome, for free.

What it does

Parses any sitemap.xml URL you open in Chrome
Detects malformed XML, missing tags, and structural errors
Returns results instantly inside the extension panel
No account, no upload, no waiting

Who it's for

Devs doing pre-launch QA
SEO professionals running technical audits
Anyone managing a site with a sitemap

The technical side (quick overview)

The extension reads the active tab's URL, fetches the sitemap content, and runs an XML parse + validation pass. Errors and warnings are categorised and surfaced in a clean summary view.

It's intentionally lightweight — no background tracking, no data sent anywhere, no bloat.

Try it

It's live on the Chrome Web Store now, completely free.

Would love feedback from the dev community — especially if you've built anything similar or have thoughts on what other checks would be useful. Drop a comment!

Built as a side project. All feedback welcome.