What a sitemap should contain

An XML sitemap should list canonical URLs that the site wants search engines to discover. Every listed URL should normally return 200, be indexable, and match the preferred protocol and hostname.

Common causes of “could not be read”

  • The sitemap route returns HTML, an application error, a redirect loop, or a blocked response.
  • The XML contains invalid characters, malformed markup, or an incorrect content type.
  • The sitemap URL uses the wrong hostname or protocol.
  • A firewall, CDN rule, maintenance mode, or authentication layer blocks crawlers.
  • The submitted address is a webpage rather than the actual XML file.

Content problems inside a readable sitemap

Remove URLs that redirect, return errors, contain noindex, canonicalize elsewhere, require login, or represent tracking and duplicate variants. Use accurate lastmod values only when the page meaningfully changes.

Verification sequence

  1. Open the sitemap directly in a private browser session.
  2. Confirm a 200 response and an XML content type.
  3. Validate the XML structure.
  4. Sample listed URLs for status, canonical, and robots consistency.
  5. Reference the sitemap in robots.txt.
  6. Submit the exact sitemap URL in Search Console and review the returned error.

The site’s generated sitemap is available at /sitemap.xml. Review canonical consistency before adding large URL sets.

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