Audit sitemap URLs for crawlable, canonical, and indexable status.
- Audit sitemap URLs for crawlable, canonical, and indexable status2 cited sources1 category
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Why this matters
Including non-indexable, redirected, or blocked URLs wastes crawl budget and confuses search engines, reducing sitemap effectiveness.
Hypothetical standard operating procedure
Adapt this example to your site, access, tools, and change process. It is our suggested procedure, informed by the sources below.
- Download current sitemap XML file.
- Use a crawler or SEO audit tool to check each URL's HTTP status, robots.txt blocking, meta noindex tags, and canonical tags.
- List and remove URLs failing any criteria from the sitemap.
- Verify cleaned sitemap includes only canonical, indexable pages.
Watch for
Inclusion of 404, redirect, noindex, or non-canonical URLs leads to mixed signals and crawl inefficiency.
Definition of done
Sitemap contains only URLs returning 200 status, not blocked by robots.txt, with self-referencing canonical tags, and no noindex directives.
Sources & attribution
Original checklist wording and example SOP by Best SEO Checklist, using source-grounded AI assistance. Editorial contact: Ted Kubaitis, @tedkubaitis on Teams. Check current source guidance before implementation.