How to Audit Your XML Sitemap (Step-by-Step Checklist)

Your sitemap might be hiding critical SEO issues. A regular sitemap audit helps you find broken pages, outdated content, and indexing problems before they hurt your rankings.

What you'll learn: - Quick checklist for auditing any sitemap - Common issues and how to spot them - Tools to make auditing faster (including Sitemap Explorer) - Action items to fix what you find

When to audit your sitemap: - Before major site launches or migrations - Quarterly for large sites (10,000+ pages) - After noticing indexing issues in Search Console - When traffic unexpectedly drops

Let's dive in.

Quick Audit Checklist

Use this checklist for every sitemap audit:

• [ ] Sitemap is accessible (no 404 errors)
• [ ] All URLs return 200 status codes
• [ ] No redirect chains (301 → 301 → 200)
• [ ] No URLs blocked by robots.txt
• [ ] No noindex pages in sitemap
• [ ] lastmod dates are accurate
• [ ] File size under 50MB
• [ ] Fewer than 50,000 URLs per file
• [ ] All URLs use HTTPS (if site is HTTPS)
• [ ] No duplicate URLs

Step 1: Visualize Your Sitemap Structure

Use Sitemap Explorer to get a quick overview:

1. Enter your sitemap URL (e.g., https://yoursite.com/sitemap.xml)
2. Click "Fetch" to load the sitemap
3. Review the tree structure in the left sidebar

What to look for: - Logical organization (pages grouped by topic/category) - Reasonable hierarchy depth (3-4 levels max) - Clear naming patterns in URLs

Red flags: - Random URL organization - Very deep nesting (5+ levels) - Duplicate content indicated by similar URLs

Red flags: - Random URL organization - Very deep nesting (5+ levels) - Duplicate content indicated by similar URLs

Step 2: Check for Technical Issues

Use Google Search Console:

1. Go to Sitemaps section
2. Check for errors or warnings
3. Review which URLs were discovered vs. indexed

Common technical issues:

Issue: 404 Errors in Sitemap

What it means: URLs that no longer exist but are still listed How to fix: Remove dead URLs or implement proper redirects

Issue: Redirect Chains

What it means: URLs that redirect multiple times (A → B → C) How to fix: Update sitemap to point to final destination URL

Issue: Blocked by robots.txt

What it means: URLs in sitemap that robots.txt blocks from crawling How to fix: Either remove from sitemap or update robots.txt (see guide)

Issue: Noindex Pages

What it means: Pages marked as "noindex" shouldn't be in sitemaps How to fix: Remove these URLs from your sitemap

Step 3: Find Outdated Content

Using Sitemap Explorer:

1. Load your sitemap
2. Sort by "Last Modified" date
3. Look for pages older than 12-18 months

Using the data to prioritize: - Pages with old dates but high traffic → Update content - Pages with old dates and no traffic → Consider removing or consolidating - Important pages with old dates → Refresh and update lastmod

Quick wins: - Update statistics and dates in old posts - Add new sections to outdated guides - Refresh screenshots and examples - Update internal links

Quick wins: - Update statistics and dates in old posts - Add new sections to outdated guides - Refresh screenshots and examples - Update internal links

Step 4: Export and Create an Action Plan

Export your sitemap data:

1. In Sitemap Explorer, click "Export CSV"
2. Open in Google Sheets or Excel
3. Add columns for tracking:
4. Status (OK, Needs Fix, Remove)
5. Priority (High, Medium, Low)
6. Assigned To
7. Notes

Prioritize fixes:

Common Sitemap Issues and Fixes

Issue: Too Many URLs

Symptoms: Sitemap over 50,000 URLs or 50MB Fix: Split into multiple sitemaps using a sitemap index

Issue: Inconsistent lastmod Dates

Symptoms: All pages show same date or today's date Fix: Fix your CMS to track actual modification dates (see lastmod guide)

Issue: Parameter URLs

Symptoms: Multiple URLs for same content (filters, sorting, etc.) Fix: Exclude parameter URLs or use canonical tags

Issue: Staging/Dev URLs

Symptoms: Non-production URLs in sitemap Fix: Configure sitemap generation to only include production domain

Quick Tools for Auditing

Free tools: - Sitemap Explorer - Visual sitemap analysis - Google Search Console - Official Google feedback - Screaming Frog (free up to 500 URLs) - Technical crawling

Paid tools: - Screaming Frog (unlimited) - $259/year - Sitebulb - From $35/month - Ahrefs - From $129/month - SEMrush - From $119/month - Moz - From $99/month

Action Checklist

After your audit, complete these actions:

• [ ] Fix all 404 errors in sitemap
• [ ] Remove blocked or noindex URLs
• [ ] Fix redirect chains
• [ ] Update outdated content (start with high-traffic pages)
• [ ] Resubmit sitemap to Google Search Console
• [ ] Schedule next audit (quarterly recommended)
• [ ] Document what you fixed for future reference

Next Steps

Now that you've audited your sitemap:

1. Fix critical issues first (404s, blocked URLs)
2. Update high-value old content
3. Resubmit to Search Console
4. Monitor for 2-4 weeks to see indexing improvements
5. Set calendar reminder for next audit

Need to analyze a competitor's sitemap structure? Check out our competitor sitemap analysis guide.