This code shows how to check a sitemap to make sure there are no links pointing to missing pages and to see if 301s are working correctly. It is explained at https://www.webucator.com/blog/2016/05/checking-your-sitemap-for-broken-links-with-python/

sitemap_checker.py

import requests
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup

sitemap = 'http://www.nasa.gov/sitemap/sitemap_nasa.html'

r = requests.get(sitemap)
html = r.content

soup = BeautifulSoup(html, 'html.parser')
links = soup.find_all('a')
hrefs = filter(None, (link.get('href') for link in links))
urls = (href for href in hrefs if href.startswith('http'))
reqs = (requests.head(url) for url in external)
results = sorted(reqs, key=lambda r: (r.status_code, len(r.history)))

print('\n==========\OK')
for r in results:
    if r.ok and not r.history:
        print(' - '.join([str(r.status_code), r.reason, r.url]))

print('\n==========\REDIRECTS')
for r in results:
    if r.ok and r.history:
        print('{} redirected'.format(r.url))

        for response in result['history']:
            print('>> Redirect to {}'.format(response.url))

print('\n==========\nERRORS')
for r in results:
    if not r.ok:
        print(' - '.join([str(r.status_code), r.reason, r.url]))