Sitemap Validation (sitemap-validation)

Summary

XML sitemap fetch/parse, sampled URL checks, and freshness hints.

Classification

• Category: SEO
• Plugin id: sitemap-validation
• Version: 1.0.0
• Target types: WEBSITE, WEBSHOP
• Weight class: LIGHT
• Risk level: not set on plugin object
• Browser required: No (HTTP / Node / other — see source)
• Tier / group: Tier 1 — HTTP-only

Schedule

• scheduleHints: { defaultInterval: '0 */6 * * *', priority: 3 }
• Prerequisites: None declared on this plugin.

Configurable inputs

Public keys are derived from inputSchema: z.object({ ... }) (underscore-prefixed keys are runtime-only and omitted here).

Field	Notes
maxUrls	Zod field in inputSchema — see source for defaults, min/max, and .describe().
checkLastmod	Zod field in inputSchema — see source for defaults, min/max, and .describe().
timeout	Zod field in inputSchema — see source for defaults, min/max, and .describe().

Runtime / injected config

• None documented beyond standard worker context (target, config, logger, reportProgress). Underscore-prefixed keys are internal.

Checks that produce findings

These checks run inside this plugin during a single test run. They are not separate tests in the database — each becomes a Finding linked to the Run for sitemap-validation.

Check	Typical severity	Why
sitemap.xml not found	WARNING	Search engines lose the authoritative URL list — new pages are discovered slower and orphan URLs persist in the index.
Invalid XML (no urlset/sitemapindex)	WARNING	Malformed sitemaps may be rejected by Google/Bing parsers — the file is effectively useless for discovery.
Empty sitemap (no URLs)	WARNING	Zero <loc> entries teach crawlers nothing and may signal an unmaintained site.
Stale lastmod dates (older than 1 year)	INFO	Ancient lastmod values reduce trust in freshness signals; crawlers may deprioritize recrawl of “unchanged” URLs.
Broken URL in sitemap (per sampled URL)	WARNING	Listing 404/5xx URLs wastes crawl budget and can pollute the index — especially harmful for large catalogs.

How each check works

1. Fetch — GET {origin}/sitemap.xml (default timeout 15s). Fetch failure → run failed with no findings.
2. 404 — WARNING missing sitemap; run status warning, score 0, early return.
3. Structure — Body must contain substring <urlset or <sitemapindex; otherwise WARNING invalid XML, score 20, return.
4. URL extraction — Regex /<loc>\s*(.*?)\s*<\/loc>/g collects URLs. Zero URLs → WARNING empty sitemap.
5. Lastmod (optional) — When checkLastmod is true (default), counts <lastmod> values older than 365 days; if any, one aggregated INFO finding with staleCount.
6. URL sampling — HEAD-checks first maxUrls entries (default 50), batches of 3, 200ms delay between batches, TesteBot/1.0 UA, follows redirects. Status ≥ 400 or network error → one WARNING per broken URL.
7. Score — max(0, 100 - (brokenCount / sampled.length) × 100) when sampling runs.

Caveats and concerns

• Fixed path — Only /sitemap.xml at site root; sitemaps referenced only in robots.txt or on other paths are not followed.
• Regex parsing — Not a validating XML parser; namespaces, CDATA, or nested index sitemaps may confuse URL extraction.
• HEAD probes — Some servers allow GET but block HEAD (or return 405), producing false “broken” findings.
• Partial sample — Only the first maxUrls URLs are checked; broken links deeper in large sitemaps may be missed.

Source

packages/test-plugins/src/plugins/sitemap-validation.ts