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

Issue	Severity	Fix
>50k URLs in single file	Critical	Split with sitemap index
Non-200 URLs	High	Remove or fix broken URLs
Noindexed URLs included	High	Remove from sitemap
Redirected URLs included	Medium	Update to final URLs
All identical lastmod	Low	Use actual modification dates
Priority/changefreq used	Info	Can remove (ignored by Google)

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)

Metric	Count	Notes
Sitemap URLs sampled	[up to 20]
Confirmed indexed	[count]
Not indexed	[count]
Coverage errors	[count]	See breakdown below

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

Source	Status	Data Provided
Static XML Analysis	Always available	Format validation, URL checks, structure review
GSC MCP (+google-search-console)	If connected	Live indexing status per URL, non-indexing reasons