Individual skill

sitemap-4xx

Use when applies to any site with a dynamically generated or manually maintained XML sitemap. Use when investigating crawl errors or after a site migration that removed pages.

skills/sitemap-4xx/SKILL.md

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Last checked: Nov 9, 2026

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Repository stars (not skill ratings): 74,686
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SKILL.mdcore · 2,079 bytes
references/rule.mddoc · 3,658 bytes

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# 4XX Pages in Sitemap

Including 4XX URLs in a sitemap signals poor site maintenance to Google, wastes crawl budget on non-existent pages, and generates errors in Search Console that can mask real indexing issues.

## Quick Reference

- Sitemaps should only contain URLs that return HTTP 200 and are indexable
- 4XX URLs in a sitemap waste crawl budget and cause Search Console errors
- Remove 404 pages from the sitemap or set up proper 301 redirects before adding them
- Monitor the sitemap regularly — deleted content must be removed from sitemaps promptly

## Check

Fetch all URLs listed in the sitemap and record their HTTP status codes. Flag any URL returning 4XX (404 Not Found, 410 Gone, 403 Forbidden). Cross-reference against Google Search Console → Coverage for corroborating data.