Matan · SEO · Technical
Sitemap (SEO)
An XML sitemap is the explicit map of URLs you want discovered — especially for new or weakly linked pages.
Pass condition in our engine: A sitemap is listed in robots.txt, available at /sitemap.xml, or linked from the page.
This SEO check is part of SEO-GEO scoring 2.2.1, last updated 2026-09-18. About 90 percent of the evaluation runs on the HTML we crawl, so you can verify the same pass condition with a free report.
1. Problem description
Without a sitemap, crawlers rely only on links. Orphan articles, paginated archives and fresh URLs take longer to appear. A stale sitemap that lists 404s is almost as harmful as having none.
2. Most common causes
- The CMS never generated /sitemap.xml.
- robots.txt does not advertise the Sitemap: URL.
- The sitemap is blocked by robots.txt or basic auth.
- Only a plugin shortcode mentions “sitemap” in HTML, with no real XML file.
3. How to fix it
- Publish an XML sitemap (or sitemap index) at a stable URL.
- Add a Sitemap: https://example.com/sitemap.xml line to robots.txt.
- Include only canonical, indexable 200 URLs.
- Submit it in Google Search Console and keep lastmod honest.
Test this check
We fetch only this URL (plus robots.txt / llms.txt at the domain root when the check needs them). We do not crawl the rest of the site like a full report.
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