Sitemap Analysis & Generation Skill

Sitemap Analysis & Generation

When to Use

Use when analyzing an existing XML sitemap or generating a new one.
Use when the user mentions sitemap issues, sitemap generation, or sitemap validation.
Use when checking URL coverage, sitemap limits, and sitemap quality rules.

Mode 1: Analyze Existing Sitemap

Validation Checks

Valid XML format
URL count <50,000 per file (protocol limit)
All URLs return HTTP 200
<lastmod> dates are accurate (not all identical)
No deprecated tags: <priority> and <changefreq> are ignored by Google
Sitemap referenced in robots.txt
Compare crawled pages vs sitemap; flag missing pages

Quality Signals

Sitemap index file if >50k URLs
Split by content type (pages, posts, images, videos)
No non-canonical URLs in sitemap
No noindexed URLs in sitemap
No redirected URLs in sitemap
HTTPS URLs only (no HTTP)

Common Issues

| Issue | Severity | Fix | |-------|----------|-----| | >50k URLs in single file | Critical | Split with sitemap index | | Non-200 URLs | High | Remove or fix broken URLs | | Noindexed URLs included | High | Remove from sitemap | | Redirected URLs included | Medium | Update to final URLs | | All identical lastmod | Low | Use actual modification dates | | Priority/changefreq used | Info | Can remove (ignored by Google) |

Mode 2: Generate New Sitemap

Process

Ask for business type (or auto-detect from existing site)
Load industry template from ../seo-plan/assets/ directory
Interactive structure planning with user
Apply quality gates:
- ⚠️ WARNING at 30+ location pages (require 60%+ unique content)
- 🛑 HARD STOP at 50+ location pages (require justification)
Generate valid XML output
Split at 50k URLs with sitemap index
Generate STRUCTURE.md documentation

Safe Programmatic Pages (OK at scale)

✅ Integration pages (with real setup docs) ✅ Template/tool pages (with downloadable content) ✅ Glossary pages (200+ word definitions) ✅ Product pages (unique specs, reviews) ✅ User profile pages (user-generated content)

Penalty Risk (avoid at scale)

❌ Location pages with only city name swapped ❌ "Best [tool] for [industry]" without industry-specific value ❌ "[Competitor] alternative" without real comparison data ❌ AI-generated pages without human review and unique value

Sitemap Format

Standard Sitemap

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
  <url>
    <loc>https://example.com/page</loc>
    <lastmod>2026-02-07</lastmod>
  </url>
</urlset>

Sitemap Index (for >50k URLs)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<sitemapindex xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
  <sitemap>
    <loc>https://example.com/sitemap-pages.xml</loc>
    <lastmod>2026-02-07</lastmod>
  </sitemap>
  <sitemap>
    <loc>https://example.com/sitemap-posts.xml</loc>
    <lastmod>2026-02-07</lastmod>
  </sitemap>
</sitemapindex>

Error Handling

URL unreachable: Report the HTTP status code and suggest checking if the site is live
No sitemap found: Check common locations (/sitemap.xml, /sitemap_index.xml, robots.txt reference) before reporting "not found"
Invalid XML format: Report specific parsing errors with line numbers
Rate limiting detected: Back off and report partial results with a note about retry timing

Agent Skills: Sitemap Analysis & Generation

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