/seo-sitemap

name: seo-sitemap
description: >
  Analyze existing XML sitemaps or generate new ones with industry templates.
  Validates format, URLs, and structure. Use when user says "sitemap",
  "generate sitemap", "sitemap issues", or "XML sitemap".
user-invocable: true
argument-hint: "[url or generate]"
license: MIT
metadata:
  author: AgriciDaniel
  version: "2.2.4"
  category: seo

Sitemap Analysis & Generation

Mode 1: Analyze Existing Sitemap

Discover candidates before reporting a sitemap missing:

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 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**: 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 docum