This translation has not been editorially reviewed yet. The German version is authoritative. Deutsche Fassung →
Indexing
Why must the sitemap contain no dead addresses?
Because the sitemap is an invitation list to search engines: every entered address says "this page exists, come and get it". If the address then responds with an error, the invitation has misled — the crawler has wasted its fetch budget, and trust in the remaining entries drops. Our check requests the addresses listed in your sitemap and counts how many don't reach a target with status 200.
The sitemap is a promise, not an archive
A sitemap should contain the current inventory: reachable, indexable pages under their final address. In practice, the list ages slowly — deleted pages stay entered, renamed ones sit under the old address, and on some systems an extension generates the sitemap from data nobody maintains any more. Search engines continuously assess how reliable a sitemap's promises are. A list that regularly leads to errors loses its value as a steering tool.
What the check exactly measures
The check loads the domain's sitemap and requests the addresses listed. The report states the number of entries with no status-200 response, along with examples. Separately, entries that lead to a redirect are flagged: they're not an error, but the sitemap should name the final address — every detour costs requests.
- Have the sitemap generated automatically from the actual page content, not from a maintained list.
- Remove deleted pages from the sitemap in the same step you delete them.
- After address changes, enter the new, final address — not the old one, which now only redirects.
- After a relaunch, do a full check of the entire sitemap — that's where legacy issues pile up first.
FAQ
Does a single dead entry harm ranking right away?
A single case has no immediately measurable effect. The effect builds up through overall reliability: the higher the share of dead entries, the less the search engine relies on the sitemap — and the slower it finds new content.
Do redirects belong in the sitemap?
The sitemap should list the final address. An entry that redirects does work, but costs an extra step on every request, and reports an address to the search engine that no longer exists in that form.
How often should the sitemap be updated?
With automatic generation, that happens by itself with every content change — that's the target state. A manually maintained sitemap inevitably ages, and should be switched to automatic generation.