SEO Sitemap

Sitemap Analysis & Generation

Mode 1: Analyze Existing Sitemap

Validation Checks

• Valid XML format
• URL count <50,000 per file (protocol limit)
• All URLs return HTTP 200
• <lastmod> dates are accurate (not all identical)
• No deprecated tags: <priority> and <changefreq> are ignored by Google
• Sitemap referenced in robots.txt
• Compare crawled pages vs sitemap — flag missing pages

Quality Signals

• Sitemap index file if >50k URLs
• Split by content type (pages, posts, images, videos)
• No non-canonical URLs in sitemap
• No noindexed URLs in sitemap
• No redirected URLs in sitemap
• HTTPS URLs only (no HTTP)

Common Issues

Mode 2: Generate New Sitemap

Process

1. Ask for business type (or auto-detect from existing site)
2. Load industry template from assets/ directory
3. Interactive structure planning with user
4. Apply quality gates:
   • ⚠️ WARNING at 30+ location pages (require 60%+ unique content)
   • 🛑 HARD STOP at 50+ location pages (require justification)
5. Generate valid XML output
6. Split at 50k URLs with sitemap index
7. Generate STRUCTURE.md documentation

Safe Programmatic Pages (OK at scale)

✅ Integration pages (with real setup docs) ✅ Template/tool pages (with downloadable content) ✅ Glossary pages (200+ word definitions) ✅ Product pages (unique specs, reviews) ✅ User profile pages (user-generated content)

Penalty Risk (avoid at scale)

❌ Location pages with only city name swapped ❌ "Best [tool] for [industry]" without industry-specific value ❌ "[Competitor] alternative" without real comparison data ❌ AI-generated pages without human review and unique value

Sitemap Format

Standard Sitemap

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
  <url>
    <loc>https://example.com/page</loc>
    <lastmod>2026-02-07</lastmod>
  </url>
</urlset>

Sitemap Index (for >50k URLs)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<sitemapindex xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
  <sitemap>
    <loc>https://example.com/sitemap-pages.xml</loc>
    <lastmod>2026-02-07</lastmod>
  </sitemap>
  <sitemap>
    <loc>https://example.com/sitemap-posts.xml</loc>
    <lastmod>2026-02-07</lastmod>
  </sitemap>
</sitemapindex>

Output

For Analysis

• VALIDATION-REPORT.md — analysis results
• Issues list with severity
• Recommendations

For Generation

• sitemap.xml (or split files with index)
• STRUCTURE.md — site architecture documentation
• URL count and organization summary

Live Data Insights (MCP Overlay)

@skills/seo/references/mcp-degradation.md

GSC Indexing Cross-Reference

If GSC available: Use ToolSearch with query "+google-search-console" to check availability.

• If GSC MCP tools are returned: fetch get_indexing_status or inspect_url for a sample of sitemap URLs (max 20 URLs to avoid rate-limit issues).
• Add ### Sitemap vs Index Coverage (GSC) section showing how many sitemap URLs are actually indexed, which are not indexed, and the specific non-indexing reasons reported by Google.
• This is the most valuable cross-reference for sitemap audits — it reveals whether Google is actually processing the sitemap correctly.
• If GSC MCP is not available: proceed with static sitemap validation only, noting that live indexing status is unavailable.

Sitemap vs Index Coverage (when GSC available)

Non-indexing reasons breakdown (from GSC inspect_url):

• Crawled — currently not indexed: [count]
• Discovered — currently not indexed: [count]
• Blocked by robots.txt: [count]
• Page with redirect: [count]
• Other reasons: [count]

Data Sources