XML Sitemap Checklist: 9 Checks Before You Submit

In shortYour sitemap should list only the pages you want in Google — every URL returning 200, indexable, canonical to itself. Anything else is noise.

An XML sitemap is a list of URLs you want search engines to find. It does not guarantee indexing, but a clean sitemap helps Google discover new pages faster and trust your signals.

The 9 checks

1. It exists and loads. Try /sitemap.xml, /sitemap_index.xml and /wp-sitemap.xml. WordPress creates one automatically since version 5.5.
2. Every URL returns 200. No 301 redirects, no 404s, no 5xx errors.
3. No noindex pages. Listing a page you have told Google not to index is a contradiction.
4. Only canonical URLs. If a page’s canonical points elsewhere, remove it. More in canonical tags explained.
5. No thin archive pages. Author archives, tag pages with one post and attachment pages usually don’t belong.
6. Correct protocol and host. All URLs should use your final version — https and either www or non-www, never a mix.
7. Honest lastmod dates. Only update lastmod when content really changes. Google ignores it when it is always “today”.
8. Within limits. Maximum 50,000 URLs or 50 MB per file. Large sites should split sitemaps by type.
9. Submitted and referenced. Submit in Search Console → Sitemaps and add the sitemap line to your robots.txt.

Reading the Search Console report

After submitting, check the “Discovered URLs” count against what you expect. Then open Pages → filter by your sitemap. A big gap between submitted and indexed URLs points to quality or indexability problems, not a sitemap problem.

WordPress tip

If you use an SEO plugin, keep only one sitemap active. Two plugins generating two sitemaps is a common mess I find in audits.

Want me to check yours along with 15 other technical areas? That’s part of my technical SEO audit.