Crystal Ball checks covered

SITEMAP_MISSING, SITEMAP_NOT_FOUND, sitemap crawl hints

Guide detail

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Practical explanations and page-specific steps. Recommended for most readers.

What the flag means

Crystal Ball may flag sitemap issues when it cannot find a sitemap, when robots.txt does not name one, or when the file contains URLs that redirect, fail, conflict with canonicals, or should not be indexed.

A missing sitemap is not automatically a defect on a small, well-linked site. A clean sitemap still gives crawlers a direct discovery source for canonical public URLs, especially on larger, newer, media-heavy, or frequently changing sites.

Common causes

Common causes include no generated file, a sitemap at a nonstandard location, stale URLs, redirecting entries, unpublished CMS content, malformed XML, or pages excluded by noindex directives. A robots.txt reference is useful but not required when the sitemap is submitted or discovered elsewhere.

What to check next

Check whether the issue appears on one page or every page using the same template. Review recent content, theme, plugin, deployment, and server changes, then compare the live output with a known-good page.

How to fix it

Confirm the warning first and make a backup before editing the live site. If the change involves templates, code, DNS, redirects, or server settings, switch to Intermediate or ask for help before proceeding.

  • Custom HTML/static: Create a sitemap.xml with canonical public URLs and reference it in robots.txt. Google's sitemap overview explains when sitemaps help.
  • WordPress: WordPress and SEO plugins often generate sitemaps automatically. Check /wp-sitemap.xml or your SEO plugin's sitemap URL.
  • Shopify: Shopify automatically generates a sitemap at /sitemap.xml. Check that important products, collections, pages, and blogs are published and indexable.
  • Wix: Wix creates a sitemap automatically for published sites. Wix's SEO dashboard and indexing settings help confirm which pages are included.
  • Webflow: Enable sitemap generation in Site settings or upload a custom sitemap if needed. Webflow can generate and submit sitemap URLs for hosted sites.

Need help?

If the fix gets murky, visit Support and send the details. Bug reports and Crystal Ball questions are free support. Implementation and development work may be paid support, but we will tell you clearly before anything becomes paid. No surprise invoices from the tower.