Discoverability · Essential · High impact

sitemap.xml valid and current

The primary URL discovery source for agent crawlers.

Essential
High impact
Adopted standard

sitemap.xml valid and current — Property, Value
Property	Value
Check id	`sitemap-xml`
Dimension	Discoverability (20%)
Tier	Essential — pool 80 pts
Weight inside tier	2
Impact	High
Maturity	Adopted — A ratified standard with real deployment.
Conditional	No
Publishing skill	`sitemap`
Standards	—

What is measured

The scanner fetches https://<domain>/sitemap.xml ($sitemap in the probe map) and parses it as XML. Pass = a urlset (or a sitemapindex) whose entries carry absolute loc URLs and a lastmod timestamp. Partial = valid XML with loc entries but no lastmod anywhere, or a sitemapindex that only points at child sitemaps. Fail = 404, an HTML page returned with a 200 by a catch-all route, or XML that does not parse.

Reproduce it yourself

You do not have to take our word for any of this. Run the same measurement against your own domain:

              DOMAIN=example.com
curl -sS "https://$DOMAIN/sitemap.xml" | grep -E '<loc>|<lastmod>' | head -20

The fix

This is the artifact to ship. It is the complete change, not a description of one.

              <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
  <url>
    <loc>https://example.com/</loc>
    <lastmod>2026-10-08</lastmod>
    <changefreq>weekly</changefreq>
    <priority>1.0</priority>
  </url>
  <url>
    <loc>https://example.com/docs/quickstart</loc>
    <lastmod>2026-10-08</lastmod>
    <changefreq>monthly</changefreq>
    <priority>0.8</priority>
  </url>
  <url>
    <loc>https://example.com/pricing</loc>
    <lastmod>2026-09-30</lastmod>
    <changefreq>monthly</changefreq>
    <priority>0.6</priority>
  </url>
</urlset>

Related checks

Related checks — Check, Tier, Impact, Same skill
Check	Tier	Impact	Same skill
`reachable` — Homepage open to agent access	Essential	Critical	—
`robots-txt` — robots.txt with agent directives	Essential	High	—
`llms-txt` — /llms.txt published and well-structured	Essential	Critical	—
`link-headers` — Discovery via Link response headers	Emerging	Medium	—
`dns-aid` — DNS-AID discovery record	Emerging	Medium	—
`canonical` — Canonical and hreflang discipline	Recommended	Medium	—
`llms-full` — /llms-full.txt expanded context	Recommended	Low	—
`agents-md` — AGENTS.md with the required sections	Recommended	High	—