SEO Technical: Sitemap

Guides sitemap creation, auditing, and optimization for search engine discovery.

When invoking

On

first use

, if helpful, open with 1–2 sentences on what this skill covers and why it matters, then provide the main output. On

subsequent use

or when the user asks to skip, go directly to the main output.

Scope (Technical SEO)

Sitemap

Create XML sitemap; submit to Google Search Console

URL discovery

Help search engines find pages; especially important for large sites or poor internal linking

Task

Generate an XML Sitemap that complies with the sitemaps.org protocol from the project's page list, and declare it in robots.txt.

Initial Assessment

Check for product marketing context first:

If

.claude/product-marketing-context.md

or

.cursor/product-marketing-context.md

exists, read it for site URL and page structure.

Identify:

Site URL

Base domain (e.g.,

https://example.com

)

URL count

Total indexable pages (single sitemap vs. sitemap index)

Data source

Static config, CMS, file system, or hybrid

1. Protocol Essentials

Item

Spec

Single sitemap limit

50,000 URLs, 50MB (uncompressed)

Sitemap index

When exceeding limit, split and have main index reference sub-sitemaps

Encoding

UTF-8

URL format

Full URL, same host, include

https://

Required tags

Optional tags

,

2. Field Requirements

Field

Description

Recommendation

url

Full URL

https://example.com/path

lastModified

Page last modified time

Use page metadata, ISO 8601; use

YYYY-MM-DD

or omit when no data

changeFrequency

Update frequency

Home

daily

, list pages

weekly

, content pages

monthly

priority

Relative importance

Home 1.0, aggregate pages 0.9, content pages 0.7–0.8, others 0.5–0.6

lastmod (Critical)

Must be accurate

Reflect actual page modification time, not sitemap generation time. Google requires verifiability; Bing reports ~18% of sitemaps ignored due to lastmod errors.

Format

W3C Datetime (

YYYY-MM-DD

or

YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS+TZD

), e.g.

2025-01-15

,

2025-01-15T14:30:00+08:00

.

Avoid

Using

new Date()

for lastmod—causes all URLs to share the same timestamp; search engines may ignore.

Apply when

Content updates, structured data changes, or important link changes.

changefreq / priority

changefreq

Hints only; does not directly determine crawl frequency. Values:
always
,
hourly
,
daily
,
weekly
,
monthly
,
yearly
,
never
.
priority: 0.0–1.0; does not affect ranking ; set higher for important pages; avoid identical values for all. 3. Architecture & Split Single Sitemap When URLs >50,000, generate /sitemap.xml directly. Sitemap Index (Multiple Sub-sitemaps) When exceeding limit, split by type or language; main index references sub-sitemaps. Example splits: /sitemap/posts.xml , /sitemap/pages.xml , /sitemap/zh.xml , /sitemap/en.xml . Main index outputs /sitemap.xml or /sitemap-index.xml , each entry as ... . Multilingual Sites Split by locale: /sitemap/zh.xml , /sitemap/en.xml . Or by content type + language: /sitemap/zh-posts.xml , /sitemap/en-posts.xml . Multi-Language Sitemap (hreflang in Sitemap) For multilingual sites, add xhtml:link hreflang alternates inside each entry. Recommended for large sites (100+ multilingual pages); centralizes hreflang management. Rules : Every language version must link to ALL others, including itself (self-reference). Include x-default pointing to default locale. Use xmlns:xhtml="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" namespace. typically uses default-locale (clean) URL; x-default points there too.

<

urlset

xmlns

=

"

http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9

"

xmlns:

xhtml

=

"

http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml

"

>

<

url

>

<

loc

>

https://example.com/page

</

loc

>

<

xhtml:

link

rel

=

"

alternate

"

hreflang

=

"

en

"

href

=

"

https://example.com/page

"

/>

<

xhtml:

link

rel

=

"

alternate

"

hreflang

=

"

zh

"

href

=

"

https://example.com/zh/page

"

/>

<

xhtml:

link

rel

=

"

alternate

"

hreflang

=

"

x-default

"

href

=

"

https://example.com/page

"

/>

</

url

>

</

urlset

>

List all language sitemaps in sitemap index; include in robots.txt.

4. Implementation

Tech Stack

Implementation

Next.js App Router

app/sitemap.ts

export

MetadataRoute.Sitemap

or

generateSitemaps

Next.js Pages Router

pages/sitemap.xml.ts

or

getServerSideProps

return XML

Astro

src/pages/sitemap-index.xml.ts

or

@astrojs/sitemap

Vite / Static build

Build script generates

public/sitemap.xml

Other

Generate static

/sitemap.xml

or return dynamically via API

Route Exclusion

If the project has i18n / middleware redirects, exclude sitemap paths to avoid redirect.

Example (Next.js matcher):

'/((?!api|_next|sitemap|sitemap-index|.\..).*)'

.

5. Page Scope

Include

Home:

/

Locale/region home pages (e.g.

/zh

,

/en

)

All indexable content pages, list pages, category pages

Exclude

/api/*

,

/admin/*

,

/_next/*

Static assets (images, JS, CSS, etc.). For image discovery, use

image sitemap

extension—see

image-optimization

Login, admin, drafts, and other pages not intended for indexing

6. Data Source & Maintenance (Single Source of Truth)

Single source of truth

Read URL list from config, CMS, or metadata; avoid hardcoding in sitemap.

Multiple page types

Tools, blog, marketing pages can be merged into one array for unified generation.

New pages

Add only to data source; sitemap updates automatically; avoid maintaining multiple places.
Central Config (Recommended)
Create a config (e.g.,
site-pages-config.ts
) that exports:
Page slugs/paths by section (tools, blog, marketing, etc.)
Optional:
modifiedDate
per page for accurate lastmod
Function:
getAllPageUrls(baseUrl)
for sitemap and IndexNow
Why: Sitemap, IndexNow, and feed can all import from the same config—no duplicate URL maintenance. IndexNow should use the same URL list; avoid separate hardcoded lists. 7. robots.txt Add to robots.txt: Sitemap: https://example.com/sitemap.xml With multiple sitemaps, only declare the main index. 8. Output Format Single Sitemap Example

< urlset xmlns = " http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9 "

< url

< loc

https://example.com/ </ loc

< lastmod

2025-01-15 </ lastmod

< changefreq

daily </ changefreq

< priority

1.0 </ priority

</ url

< url

< loc

https://example.com/page </ loc

< lastmod

2025-01-10 </ lastmod

< changefreq

weekly </ changefreq

< priority

0.8 </ priority

</ url

</ urlset

Sitemap Index Example

< sitemapindex xmlns = " http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9 "

< sitemap

< loc

https://example.com/sitemap/pages.xml </ loc

< lastmod

2025-01-15 </ lastmod

</ sitemap

< sitemap

< loc

https://example.com/sitemap/posts.xml </ loc

< lastmod

2025-01-14 </ lastmod

</ sitemap

</ sitemapindex

Common Issues Issue Cause / Fix Sitemap 404 Build failure, wrong path, incorrect export; check routes and deployment Missing pages URLs not in data source, filtered or excluded lastmod anomaly Avoid new Date() ; use modifiedDate from page metadata Google not indexing Submit sitemap in GSC; check Coverage (google-search-console) and robots EN/ZH URL mismatch Use unified data source; share same list when generating by locale References sitemaps.org Google Sitemap

xml-sitemap

安装