GEO-011 · A valid sitemap is discoverable and its URLs are reachable
A sitemap referenced from robots.txt, that parses and lists reachable URLs, is the documented way to tell crawlers what exists.
- Evidence class
- E2
- Weight
- 2
- Subject
- one site subject
- Scope
- URL/repo
- Default severity
- medium
- Lifecycle
- stable
- Platforms
- Any web stack
Sub-checks
A subject fails if any evaluated sub-check fails, and passes only when every applicable sub-check ran and passed. url sub-checks need a URL; both can also run from source.
| Sub-check | Scope | Checks that |
|---|---|---|
sitemap_valid | both | a sitemap exists and parses as urlset or sitemapindex |
discoverable | both | robots.txt carries a Sitemap: line |
listed_accessible | url | sampled listed URLs answer 200 |
Remediation
Publish a sitemap, reference it with an absolute Sitemap: line in robots.txt, and keep only reachable URLs in it.
Fix class: safe sitemap line / guarded sitemap generation
S1Add a Sitemap line to the sole literal robots.txt — safe, requires V2G3Create a static-only app/sitemap.ts — guarded, requires V4
Known false positives
- Sitemaps submitted only through a search console; GEO cannot see those.
Evidence
Platform policies and standards are cited as such; anything else is labelled guidance. These links were carried forward from the specification and should be rechecked before quoting them as current policy.
- sitemaps.org protocol (standard)
- RFC 9309: Robots Exclusion Protocol (standard)
Run it
npx geopilot explain GEO-011
npx geopilot scan . --rule GEO-011