Missing sitemap.xml
A sitemap tells search engines which pages exist and when they changed, rather than leaving them to discover everything by following links.
Why it matters
A sitemap tells search engines which pages exist and when they changed, rather than leaving them to discover everything by following links. Without one, pages that are not linked prominently — new routes especially — take far longer to appear in search, or never do.
How ShipReady detects it
Launch signals that belong to the ORIGIN: whether unknown routes return a real 404, and whether robots.txt and sitemap.xml exist. All three are single facts about the deployment. Re-probing them per page would issue three requests per crawled page to re-learn the same answers.
Detection is deterministic. ShipReady reports this only when it observes the condition directly, and prefers to miss a real problem over inventing one. Rule version 1.2.0.
How to fix it
This is the prompt ShipReady puts in your report — written to be pasted straight into Cursor, Claude Code, or whichever assistant built the app.
A 'sitemap.xml' file was not found. Add an XML sitemap to help search engines discover and index your pages efficiently.
Frequently asked questions
- What does "Missing sitemap.xml" mean?
- A sitemap tells search engines which pages exist and when they changed, rather than leaving them to discover everything by following links.
- How serious is it?
- ShipReady rates this low. Worth fixing. Small individually, and they accumulate.
- How do I fix it?
- Paste the fix prompt on this page into Cursor, Claude Code or your AI editor. It is the same prompt ShipReady puts in your report.
- Can I check my own site?
- Yes — ShipReady scans up to ten pages of any public site for free and reports this alongside every other check.
Related checks
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