How to Check if Your Sitemap Includes Noindex URLs
Use tools like Screaming Frog or a custom script to crawl your sitemap and identify pages marked with a noindex tag. Ensuring your sitemap only includes indexable pages improves crawl efficiency and SEO rankings.

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Key Takaways






Frequently Asked Questions
Why should I remove noindex URLs from my sitemap?
At least quarterly or after major site structure changes to ensure your sitemap remains optimized and accurate.
How often should I audit my sitemap for noindex URLs?
At least quarterly or after major site structure changes to ensure your sitemap remains optimized and accurate.
Can Google penalize me for having noindex URLs in my sitemap?
No penalties, but it can confuse crawlers and lower your site's search performance due to inefficiencies.
What tools can help automate this process?
Screaming Frog, Sitebulb, Google Search Console, and Python scripts using BeautifulSoup or requests libraries.
Does Yoast or Rank Math include noindex pages in sitemap by default?
No, both plugins typically exclude noindex pages automatically, but you should still verify manually.
Step by Step Plan
Export Your Sitemap
Download or access your sitemap.xml file either through yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml or from your CMS or SEO plugin settings.
Crawl Sitemap with SEO Tool
Use SEO tools like Screaming Frog or Sitebulb to crawl the sitemap and report on meta robots tags for each URL.
Filter Noindex URLs
Sort or filter the crawled data to find which URLs are marked with <meta name="robots" content="noindex"> or X-Robots-Tag headers.
Filter Noindex URLs
In GSC, use the ‘Pages’ report under Indexing to identify noindex URLs still submitted in your sitemap.
Update and Resubmit Sitemap
Remove noindex URLs from your sitemap via your CMS or manually, then resubmit the cleaned XML sitemap to Google Search Console.
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