Soap
Sitemaps

robots.txt does not reference a sitemap

A simple Sitemap: line in robots.txt points crawlers straight to your sitemap.

What it is

This check flags a robots.txt file that omits a Sitemap: directive.

Why it matters for SEO

Declaring the sitemap in robots.txt speeds discovery, especially for crawlers that read robots.txt first.

Example

# robots.txt
User-agent: *
Disallow:
# (no Sitemap: line)

How to fix

  1. Add Sitemap: https://example.com/sitemap.xml to robots.txt.
  2. Use the absolute HTTPS URL.
  3. List multiple sitemaps if you have them.
  4. Re-crawl to confirm the directive is present.

Related checks

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