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XML sitemap: what Crawl Audit check 32 looks for

Crawl Audit check 32 looks for an XML sitemap. When a small site may not need one, what a sitemap does and doesn't guarantee, and where yours lives.

Zain Kazmi3 min read
On this page
  1. What Crawl Audit checks
  2. What Google says
  3. What belongs in it
  4. On your platform
  5. Sources
Check
32 of 200
Module
Technical SEO & Indexability
Group
Crawlability & Indexing
Impact
High

Short answer: an XML sitemap is a list of the URLs you want search engines to know about. Check 32 fails if Crawl Audit can't find one. Google says a small, well-linked site may not need a sitemap, and that a sitemap doesn't guarantee indexing. But almost every platform makes one for you, so the real job is usually to make sure it can be found.

What Crawl Audit checks

Crawl Audit tries, in order: the first Sitemap: URL in your robots.txt, then /sitemap.xml, then /sitemap_index.xml.

  • Pass: one of them returns 200.
  • Fail: none does.

WordPress's built-in sitemap lives at /wp-sitemap.xml, which isn't one of the paths Crawl Audit guesses. WordPress lists it in its robots.txt, though, so Crawl Audit finds it through the Sitemap: line. That's another reason to keep that line (check 34).

What Google says

  • You might not need one if your site is "small", meaning "about 500 pages or fewer", counting only pages that should be in search, or if your site "is comprehensively linked internally".
  • No guarantee: a sitemap "doesn't guarantee that all the items in your sitemap will be crawled and indexed. However, in most cases, your site will benefit from having a sitemap."
  • Submitting: through the Search Console Sitemaps report, through the Search Console API, or with a line in robots.txt.

Bing's guidelines say the same: "Use XML sitemaps to indicate which URLs matter and when content changes", "List only canonical URLs", and "Sitemaps do not guarantee visibility". Bing also supports IndexNow, a way to tell it the moment a URL is added, updated or removed.

Ours listed 334 URLs on 3 October 2026, and it's generated from the same data as the pages, so a new page appears in it the day it's published. We also send new URLs through IndexNow when we publish.

What belongs in it

  • Only canonical URLs that return 200 and that you want in search.
  • Not redirects, not noindex pages, not admin or login pages.
  • Full absolute URLs: Google says "Use fully-qualified, absolute URLs in your sitemaps."

On your platform

  • WordPress: core publishes /wp-sitemap.xml (since 5.5). Yoast replaces it with /sitemap_index.xml. If you tick "Discourage search engines" in Settings › Reading, WordPress disables its sitemaps.
  • Shopify: "All Shopify stores automatically generate a sitemap.xml file", at yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml.
  • Wix: automatic, at yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml.
  • Squarespace: automatic, at /sitemap.xml. Pages hidden from search are left out.
  • Next.js: app/sitemap.ts returning MetadataRoute.Sitemap, generated from your data.

Sources

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