Fix library · Technical
An XML sitemap is the list of pages you want found
Search engines find pages by following links. That works well for anything prominent in your menu and less well for the page you added last Tuesday, three clicks deep. A sitemap is simply the list, handed over directly, so nothing depends on being stumbled upon.
No XML sitemap found
What SEOPert detected
No XML sitemap was found at the usual addresses or named in robots.txt.
What this means
An XML sitemap lists your pages so search engines can find them all, including new ones.
How to fix it
- Turn on a sitemap in your website builder or SEO plugin, then submit its address in Google Search Console (Sitemaps).
On WordPress
- WordPress creates /wp-sitemap.xml automatically; Yoast SEO and Rank Math create /sitemap_index.xml. Add a “Sitemap:” line pointing to it in robots.txt and submit it in Search Console.
On Shopify
- Shopify generates /sitemap.xml automatically; submit it in Google Search Console.
On Wix
- Wix generates a sitemap automatically once your site is published on a domain; submit /sitemap.xml in Search Console.
On Squarespace
- Squarespace generates /sitemap.xml automatically; submit it in Google Search Console.
If you are handing this to a developer
Serve an XML sitemap of canonical, indexable URLs; reference it in robots.txt.
Check it worked. Open yoursite.com/sitemap.xml (or the address in robots.txt) and submit it in Google Search Console → Sitemaps: it should say “Success”.
Related
Check your own site
See which of these apply to you.
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