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Rule catalogue

sitemap.entry.redirects

A sitemap should list final URLs, not URLs that redirect

warningsite-wideguideline

Why it matters

Google asks for final URLs. Every hop is crawl budget spent, plus one more chance for a consumer to disagree with you about which address is the page — which is the same argument the canonical rules make, arriving from the other direction.

What the finding looks like

The message goflag prints, with example values substituted.

warn sitemap.entry.redirects 3 sitemap entries redirect: https://example.com/a → https://example.com/a/. Google asks for the final URL, and every hop is crawl budget spent plus one more chance for a consumer to disagree about which address is the page.

How to fix it

The catalogue carries no snippet for a site rule: a cross-page rule builds its remedy from what the crawl found, so goflag attaches the fix to the finding itself rather than to the rule. Run it and read the finding.

Says who?

This rule is guideline, and it cites the documents below. Nothing here is goflag’s opinion of what a good page looks like — if you disagree with a finding, this is what you are disagreeing with.