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HTML sitemap pages: Crawl Audit check 35 explained

Crawl Audit check 35 always passes. Why Google's current documentation doesn't mention HTML sitemaps, and when a page listing your pages still helps.

Zain Kazmi2 min read
On this page
  1. What Crawl Audit checks
  2. What Google says
  3. When an HTML sitemap still helps
  4. On your platform
  5. Sources
Check
35 of 200
Module
Technical SEO & Indexability
Group
Crawlability & Indexing
Impact
Low

Short answer: an HTML sitemap is an ordinary web page that lists links to the pages on your site, for people. It isn't the XML sitemap from check 32, which is for search engines. Check 35 is informational and always passes. It just notes whether the page links to anything with "sitemap" in the URL. If your navigation and section pages already lead everywhere, you don't need one.

What Crawl Audit checks

  • Pass: the page has a link whose href contains "sitemap".
  • Pass: it doesn't, with the note "optional when an XML sitemap exists."

A link to your XML sitemap also counts here, so a pass doesn't necessarily mean you have an HTML sitemap page.

What Google says

We checked Google's current Search documentation, including the sitemap guides, the SEO Starter Guide, link best practices and Search Essentials. None of it mentions HTML sitemap pages. What Google does say is that it "primarily finds pages through links from other pages it already crawled", and that "Every page you care about should have a link from at least one other page on your site." An HTML sitemap is one way to give every page that link. Good navigation and hub pages are another.

When an HTML sitemap still helps

  • Large or deep sites, where menus can't show everything and visitors need an overview.
  • Pages that don't fit the menu, such as policies, help articles or older guides, which might otherwise be orphans (check 46).
  • Accessibility: a plain list of links is easy to use with a keyboard or screen reader.

On this site, section pages do this job. The index of every Crawl Audit check, for example, links all the explainers in one place.

On your platform

  • WordPress, Shopify, Wix and Squarespace: build a normal page with links to your main sections, collections and the pages that aren't in your menu.
  • Next.js: generate the page from the same data as your XML sitemap, so they can't disagree.

Sources

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