SEO & Performance
XML Sitemap Optimization
A sitemap's job is telling search engines which URLs exist and are worth crawling — it doesn't guarantee indexing, but an inaccurate one (listing removed pages, missing new ones, wrong lastmod dates) actively wastes crawl budget and can create confusion about which version of a page is canonical.
I build sitemaps generated programmatically from the actual route data, so they can't silently drift out of sync with the real site the way a hand-maintained file eventually does.
What a Good Sitemap Includes
- checkOnly canonical, indexable URLs — no duplicates, redirects, or noindex pages
- checkAccurate lastmod dates that reflect genuine content changes, not fabricated on every build
- checkSitemap index files for sites large enough to exceed a single sitemap's URL limit
- checkSeparate sitemaps by content type where it helps monitoring (e.g. one for blog content, one for service pages)
Common Mistakes
- arrow_rightA hand-maintained sitemap that falls out of sync as pages are added, removed, or renamed
- arrow_rightIncluding pages that redirect or return errors, which sends mixed signals to crawlers
- arrow_rightSetting lastmod to the current date on every deploy regardless of whether the page's content actually changed
- arrow_rightNot submitting the sitemap in Search Console after significant changes
Frequently Asked Questions
Does a sitemap guarantee my pages get indexed?add
No — it's a hint that helps discovery, not a guarantee. Indexing still depends on content quality, crawlability, and the page not being blocked by robots.txt or a noindex tag.
Should lastmod dates update automatically on every build?add
No — lastmod should reflect when a page's content genuinely changed, not the last time the site was rebuilt. Setting it to the current date on every deploy regardless of actual changes reduces its usefulness as a freshness signal.
How many URLs can a single sitemap hold?add
Up to 50,000 URLs or 50MB uncompressed per the sitemap protocol — sites larger than that need a sitemap index file referencing multiple individual sitemaps.