# Sites with a broken sitemap A site-wide report: one row per host, over the sitemap rows the crawl emitted. ## What this report returns A sitemap lets crawlers and agents enumerate a site's URLs without following every link. A row appears here when any of these is wrong, worst first: - **Empty Document**The sitemap the site declares is served with no content in it, so it enumerates nothing an agent or crawler could follow. Distinct from malformed XML, which means a document that is there and won't parse: this one has no document at all, and the repair is different.**Fix** Publish the URLs at that address, or remove the Sitemap: line in robots.txt that promises them. - **Missing Namespace**The <urlset>/<sitemapindex> does not declare the required sitemaps.org 0.9 namespace, so strict parsers do not recognise the file as a sitemap and reject the whole thing. It covers both faults: a root with no xmlns at all, and one declaring a near-miss such as the https:// spelling of the sitemaps.org URL, which is the common case and a one-character fix.**Fix** Declare `xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9"` on the root element, with http and not https. - **Malformed XML**A sitemap will not parse, so crawlers get nothing from it: either its XML isn't well-formed, or it's a .gz that doesn't decompress. A document that is simply not a sitemap is Sitemap Wrong Document Type instead, not this.**Fix** Repair the file (unclosed tags, unescaped & characters, or re-generate the gzip) and re-validate it. Sitemap Findings names the offending URL. - **Wrong Document Type**A URL declared as a sitemap (a robots.txt Sitemap: line, or a <loc> in a sitemap index) serves something that is not a sitemap in any permitted format, so an agent following the declaration gets no URLs. The file itself is often fine: a site pointing Sitemap: at its llms.txt has a valid llms.txt and an invalid declaration.**Fix** Point the declaration at a real sitemap, or remove it. Sitemap Findings names the URL. - **Relative Locs**<loc> entries contain relative URLs, which the sitemaps.org protocol forbids, so crawlers drop those entries.**Fix** Make every <loc> a full absolute URL including scheme and host. - **Relative Declaration**A Sitemap: line in robots.txt gives a path such as `/sitemap.xml` instead of a full URL. Google's robots.txt rules say the value must be a fully qualified URL, so a crawler may not find the sitemap from it.**Fix** Write the whole address, e.g. Sitemap: `https://example.com/sitemap.xml`. - **Lists Another Host**The sitemap lists URLs on a host it does not speak for, so crawlers drop those entries and the pages go undiscovered.**Fix** Serve a sitemap from that host, or have that host's robots.txt declare this one (cross-submission), e.g. Sitemap: `https://shop.example.com/sitemap.xml`. - **Too Large**A single sitemap exceeds the protocol cap of 50,000 URLs / 50 MB, past which crawlers truncate or reject it.**Fix** Split it into multiple sitemaps referenced by a <sitemapindex>. A note, not a fault: we also mention when a sitemap in a folder lists pages outside that folder, which Google reads only if the sitemap was submitted in Search Console. It never fails the site. Spec: the sitemaps.org 0.9 protocol. ## The columns it shows Every defect this technology can carry is a column in the grid, worst first, so nothing is hidden behind a filter you have to know to apply. - Host`host` - Sitemap Valid`sitemapValid` - Sitemap Findings`sitemapFindings` - Sitemap URLs Listed`sitemapUrlCount` - Sitemap Largest File Size (Bytes)`sitemapBytes` - Sitemap Relative Entry Samples`sitemapRelativeLocSamples` - Sitemap Cross-Host Entry Samples`sitemapCrossHostLocSamples` - Sitemap Entries Outside Its Folder (Samples)`sitemapOutOfDirectoryLocSamples` - Sitemap Conformance Issue Detected`sitemapConformanceIssueDetected` - Sitemap Empty Document`sitemapEmptyDocument` - Sitemap Missing Namespace`sitemapMissingNamespace` - Sitemap Malformed XML`sitemapMalformedXml` - Sitemap Wrong Document Type`sitemapWrongDocumentType` - Sitemap Relative Locs`sitemapRelativeLocs` - Sitemap Relative Declaration`sitemapRelativeDeclaration` - Sitemap Lists Another Host`sitemapCrossHostLocs` - Sitemap Too Large`sitemapTooLarge` - Sitemap Lists Pages Outside Its Folder`sitemapOutOfDirectoryLocs` - Sitemap Partially Assessed`sitemapPartiallyAssessed` ## About XML sitemap A list of a site's pages, published so crawlers can find them. [Read how XML sitemap is checked](https://agentic-readiness.lumar.io/docs/discoverability/sitemap), including the specification it is validated against and a worked correct and broken example. ## Running it This report comes with Agentic Readiness in Lumar and appears on every crawl of any project that has it turned on. [See the whole set](https://agentic-readiness.lumar.io/scan-at-scale), or check a single URL with the [scanner on this site](https://agentic-readiness.lumar.io/), which runs the same code with no account. [Get Lumar pricing →](https://www.lumar.io/pricing/)