Skip to content
goflag
Documentation
Rule catalogue

sitemap.unparsable

A located sitemap must be a well-formed <urlset> or <sitemapindex>

errorsite-widespec-required

Why it matters

The usual cause is an HTML error page answered with a 200, which reads as a perfectly healthy sitemap to anything that only checks the status code. The file is present, the request succeeds, and the inventory is empty.

What the finding looks like

The message goflag prints, with example values substituted.

error sitemap.unparsable A sitemap was served but does not parse as XML. The usual cause is an HTML error page answered with a 200 — which reads as a healthy sitemap to anything that only checks the status.

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 spec-required, and it cites the document 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.