S15 - Sitemap URL Does Not Exist In Robots.txt
| Alert Properties |
Alert Description |
| Alert Name |
Sitemap URL not found in robots.txt |
| Code |
S15 |
| Description |
Absence of sitemap.xml in robots.txt could impact search engine rankings negatively |
| Level |
Warning |
It is important to ensure that search engines can easily find sitemap.xml in robots.txt file. Also, make sure that the sitemap is present on the root URL. Check the following example:
robots.txt
User-agent: *
Disallow:
Sitemap: https://www.example.com/sitemap.xml
Do I need a sitemap?
You might need a sitemap if:
- Your site is really large.
- Your site has a large archive of content pages that are isolated or not well linked to each other.
- Your site is new and includes some external links.
- Your site has a lot of rich media content (video, images) or is part of a news distribution network.
You might not need a sitemap if:
- Your site is “small”.
- You’re on a simple site hosting service like Blogger.
- Your site is comprehensively linked internally.
- You don’t have many media files (videos, images) or news pages that you need to index on a consistent basis.
Learn more about a sitemap here.