Discoverability · Check sitemap
sitemap.xml — search-engine page index
A sitemap.xml file at the root of your site that enumerates every important URL (homepage, services, contact, blog posts, etc.) with optional metadata like last-modified date and change frequency. Google reads sitemaps to discover and prioritize your pages.
Why it matters
The case for sitemap.xml
Google's crawler is reasonably good at finding pages by following links, but sitemap.xml accelerates indexing and explicitly tells Google which pages are canonical. It's especially important for newly-launched sites (no inbound links yet) and for sites with deep page structures that aren't all reachable from the homepage in 2-3 clicks.
How this audit checks it
What we actually look at
We GET `https://yoursite.com/sitemap.xml` and check that the response is HTTP 200 with non-empty XML content containing at least one <url> entry.
Steps
How to apply it
- Most modern site builders generate this automatically (Vercel + Next.js: app/sitemap.ts; WordPress: Yoast or RankMath plugin; Wix/Squarespace: built-in)
- If hand-rolling: list every page URL as <url><loc>https://...</loc></url> inside a <urlset>
- Submit at https://search.google.com/search-console after verifying ownership — submission accelerates the first crawl
- Update on every new page addition (most CMSes do this automatically)
Common mistakes
What goes wrong
- Listing every paginated archive URL — bloats the sitemap and dilutes priority signals
- Forgetting to update when removing pages (404s in sitemap hurt your crawl-budget score)
- Putting the sitemap somewhere non-canonical like /static/sitemap.xml without a robots.txt pointer
Other checks in the baseline
Continue your audit walk-through.
Next step
See how your site scores.
Run the free 13-point audit on your URL — takes ~10 seconds, shows exactly which checks pass and fail with copy-pasteable fixes.