XML sitemap contains errors: what it is, why it matters, and how to fix it

The XML sitemap exists but contains issues such as malformed XML, non-200 status URLs, non-canonical URLs, or URLs blocked by robots.txt. These errors reduce the sitemap's effectiveness as a crawl signal.

A sitemap with errors sends mixed signals to search engines. Including URLs that return 404s, redirect, or are blocked wastes crawl budget. Google may lose trust in the sitemap's accuracy and deprioritise it, reducing its positive impact on crawl discovery.

Audit your sitemap to ensure every listed URL returns a 200 status code, is the canonical version, is not blocked by robots.txt, and is not marked noindex. Remove redirecting, broken, or non-canonical URLs. Validate the XML syntax. Most CMS platforms and sitemap plugins have options to auto-exclude problematic URLs.

This is a medium-severity issue: individually modest, but it compounds — dozens of medium issues across hundreds of pages add up to a real quality deficit in how search engines assess the site. It belongs to the crawlability family of checks.

Run a free Dr Urls audit: it crawls your site, detects xml sitemap contains errors on every affected page, shows example URLs, and generates a ready-to-use fix task. Re-scan after fixing to verify the issue is gone.