Broken URLs in the sitemap

A sample of the addresses the sitemap lists, fetched to check they still answer. A sitemap full of dead links spends the crawl budget on nothing.

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A sitemap that lists pages which no longer exist sends crawlers to error pages. Each such request uses part of the crawl budget that could have gone to real pages, and Search Console reports the sitemap as containing errors. It is also a reliable sign that the sitemap is generated from stale data, a static file nobody regenerated, or a cache that outlived a redesign.

How SiteScan checks it

The scanner picks up to five addresses from the sitemap at random, spread across the file rather than taken from the top, and requests each one. An answer of 400 or higher counts as an error, except 405 and 501, which only mean the server does not support the type of request used. Green "All reachable" means every sampled address answered; red gives the number that failed, and the rows under it list those addresses with their status codes. Because it is a sample, a green row is not proof that the whole file is clean.

How to fix

• Remove deleted pages from the sitemap, or regenerate it from the CMS instead of keeping a static copy.
• For pages that moved, list the new address and redirect the old one with a 301.
• Check the full file in Search Console's Pages report, which lists every listed URL with an error.

See also broken links and soft 404 errors.