Search
XML sitemap is present and valid
seo.sitemap
Why this matters
A sitemap is how you tell Google which pages exist and are worth looking at. Without one, pages that are not well linked internally may never be found at all.
Who fixes it
You can, usually
Roughly how long
Minutes
Care needed
Low risk to change
How to fix it
Generate an XML sitemap listing your indexable pages and reference it from robots.txt.
On your platform
WordPress
Yoast and Rank Math both generate one automatically and serve it at `/sitemap_index.xml`; WordPress itself has produced a basic one at `/wp-sitemap.xml` since version 5.5. Check which is live before adding a third — two sitemaps disagreeing about one site is worse than either alone.
Shopify
Shopify generates `/sitemap.xml` automatically and there is nothing to install. If it is missing or empty the store is almost certainly still password protected, under Online Store → Preferences — which is also keeping Google out entirely.
Drupal
The Simple XML Sitemap module. Install it, then choose which content types belong in the sitemap: the default includes everything, which usually means taxonomy and user pages you would rather leave out.
Joomla
Joomla has no built-in XML sitemap, which is the answer people spend longest looking for. It needs an extension — OSMap and JSitemap are the usual two — and once installed, add its address to your robots.txt.
How we score it
Failing this check takes up to 12 points off your search score. It is a fact about your site rather than a measurement, so it reads the same on every scan until you change something.
Does your site pass this one?
This check runs on every scan, along with the other 106. Free, no account, and you see the evidence for each result.
Check my siteOther search checks
- Canonical tags point somewhere validA canonical tag tells Google which address is the real one for a page. When it points somewhere wrong — another domain, a dead page, or the wrong protocol — Google follows it anyway, and the page you wanted indexed can be dropped in favour of one that does not exist.
- Content has been updated recentlySome content is meant to sit still, and age alone is not a fault. But prices, opening hours and staff pages that have not been touched in over a year are usually wrong by now — and a visitor who acts on the wrong opening hours does not come back to check whether the rest was right.
- Descriptions are a sensible lengthLong descriptions get truncated mid-sentence; very short ones waste the space you are given.
- Each page has exactly one title tagA page can only have one title. When there are several, the browser and Google each pick one — and they do not always pick the same one, so what you see in the tab may not be what appears in search.
- Each page has one main headingSeveral top-level headings makes the structure of the page ambiguous. Worth checking rather than urgent — modern HTML permits it, and Google handles it, but it usually signals that headings are being chosen for their size.
- Every page has a main headingThe h1 is the headline of the page. Without one, both visitors skimming and search engines parsing the page have nothing telling them what it is about.