---
name: SEO Sitemap
slug: seo-sitemap
category: SEO
description: SEO Sitemap analyzes existing XML sitemaps and generates new ones with industry templates, validating format, URLs, and structure. Use when working with sitemaps, sitemap issues, or XML sitemap generation.
github: "https://github.com/AgriciDaniel/claude-seo/tree/main/skills/seo-sitemap"
language: Python
stars: 14134
forks: 2054
install: "npx degit https://github.com/AgriciDaniel/claude-seo/tree/main/skills/seo-sitemap ~/.claude/skills/seo-sitemap"
installs_to: ~/.claude/skills/seo-sitemap
source_path: skills/seo-sitemap/SKILL.md
collection_size: 25
category_size: 164
collection_url: "https://dirskills.com/collections/AgriciDaniel/claude-seo"
added: 2026-08-14T07:13:20.815Z
last_synced: 2026-08-14T07:13:20.815Z
canonical_url: "https://dirskills.com/skills/seo-sitemap"
---

# SEO Sitemap

SEO Sitemap analyzes existing XML sitemaps and generates new ones with industry templates, validating format, URLs, and structure. Use when working with sitemaps, sitemap issues, or XML sitemap generation.

**Install:**

```bash
npx degit https://github.com/AgriciDaniel/claude-seo/tree/main/skills/seo-sitemap ~/.claude/skills/seo-sitemap
```

## README

# Sitemap Analysis & Generation

## Mode 1: Analyze Existing Sitemap

Discover candidates before reporting a sitemap missing:

```bash
claude-seo run sitemap_discovery.py <url> --json
```

The helper reads every bounded `Sitemap:` declaration in robots.txt, validates
cross-host targets through the shared SSRF-safe fetch layer, and still probes
common paths when a declared sitemap is stale or invalid. Use only entries in
`found`; preserve declared failures as findings instead of treating a robots.txt
line alone as proof that a sitemap works.

### Validation Checks
- Valid XML format
- Per-file limit: **≤50,000 URLs AND ≤50MB uncompressed** (whichever is hit first)
- All URLs return HTTP 200
- `<lastmod>` accurate: must be a valid **W3C Datetime** and reflect the **last
  significant content change** (main content, structured data, links, not
  copyright/boilerplate edits). Google only honours `<lastmod>` when consistently
  and verifiably accurate, so warn when values are suspiciously uniform or newer
  than the page's real content.
- 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 |
| >50MB uncompressed 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) |

### Extension sitemaps (image / video / news)

Google documents three subtypes with their own rules, validate per-subtype:
- **Image** (`http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap-image/1.1`): only two valid
  tags remain, `<image:image>` and `<image:loc>` (max **1,000** `<image:image>`
  per `<url>`). `<image:caption>`/`<image:geo_location>`/`<image:title>`/
 `<image:license>` were deprecated (2022), flag as info-level removable.
- **Video**: required `<video:video>` with `<video:thumbnail_loc>`,
  `<video:title>`, `<video:description>`, plus `<video:content_loc>` or
  `<video:player_loc>`; mRSS also supported. Flag deprecated/removed tags
  (`<video:category>`, `<video:gallery_loc>`, `<video:price>`, `<video:tvshow>`,
  player autoplay/allow_embed) as info-level removable; recheck Google docs before citing a removal date.
- **News**: max **1,000** `<news:news>` per file (not 50,000); include only
  articles from the **last 2 days**; required `<news:publication>`/`<news:name>`/
  `<news:language>`/`<news:publication_date>`/`<news:title>`; submit/discover through
  Search Console or robots.txt/sitemap index; use Publisher Center only for
  publication management where relevant. When the `news:` namespace is detected, override the generic
  50k check with the 1,000 cap.

## Mode 2: Generate New Sitemap

### Process
1. Ask for business type (or auto-detect from existing site)
2. Load industry template from `../seo-plan/assets/` directory
3. Interactive structure planning with user
4. Apply quality gates:
   - ⚠️ WARNING at 30+ location pages (require 60%+ unique content)
   - 🛑 HARD STOP at 50+ location pages (require justification)
5. Generate valid XML output
6. Split at whichever comes first: 50,000 URLs or 50MB uncompressed, with sitemap index
7. 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
<?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
<?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**: Run `sitemap_discovery.py` and report "not found" only
  when its `found` list is empty after declared and common candidates are checked
- **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

## Output

### For Analysis
- `VALIDATION-REPORT.md`: analysis results
- Issues list with severity
- Recommendations

### For Generation
- `sitemap.xml` (or split files with index)
- `STRUCTURE.md`: site architecture documentation
- URL count and organization summary