Sitemaps: Manage Sitemaps and Crawl Coverage for Better Indexing

The Sitemaps page shows which sitemaps the app has discovered for your property, how many URLs they cover, and how that compares to what was actually crawled. Using it helps you keep search engines in sync with your site and fix coverage gaps that limit indexing and traffic.

Sections and how to use them

Sitemap list

After loading, you see a list of sitemaps (e.g. from sitemap.xml, sitemap-index.xml, or other sitemap URLs). For each sitemap you typically see:

• URL — The sitemap location (you can open it in a browser if needed).
• Status or type — e.g. index vs URL list.
• Refresh — Re-fetch the sitemap so the app has the latest URLs.

Use the list to confirm all important sitemaps are discovered and up to date.

Sitemap coverage

A coverage summary shows:

• Covered — URLs that appear in at least one sitemap and were also crawled.
• Sitemap-only — URLs listed in sitemaps but not yet in the crawl (e.g. new or not yet visited).
• Crawl-only — URLs that were crawled but are not in any sitemap.

Why it matters: Crawl-only URLs may not be submitted to search engines via sitemaps; sitemap-only URLs might be new or unreachable. Balancing these improves discovery and indexing.

Viewing URLs in a sitemap

You can open a URL viewer for a chosen sitemap to see the URLs it lists, often with search/filter. Use this to verify that key sections (e.g. blog, products) are included and to spot wrong or outdated URLs.

Crawl-only URLs

The Crawl-only URLs section (or modal) lists URLs that were found during crawling but are not in any sitemap. These pages might:

• Be important for users and search but not submitted.
• Be low-priority or duplicate and intentionally excluded.

How to use: Review the list; for URLs that should be indexable, add them to the appropriate sitemap (or fix the sitemap generation). You can Create issue (e.g. Jira) to “Add crawl-only URLs to sitemap” with the list attached, so your team can update sitemaps and improve coverage.

Crawl sitemap-only URLs

Some workflows let you crawl sitemap-only URLs—i.e. run a crawl that fetches URLs that are in sitemaps but not yet in your crawl data. Use this after adding new sitemaps or new URLs to existing sitemaps so the app’s data and Reports reflect the full site.

How the Sitemaps page helps traffic and SEO

• Faster discovery — Search engines use sitemaps to discover URLs; keeping sitemaps complete and up to date helps new or updated pages get indexed sooner.
• No missed key pages — Crawl-only lists surface important pages that aren’t in sitemaps so you can add them and avoid under-indexing.
• Cleaner crawl budget — Aligning sitemaps with what you want indexed helps engines focus on the right URLs.
• Structured workflow — Creating tickets for “add these URLs to sitemap” makes it easy to track and close coverage gaps.

Use Sitemaps after each major site change or periodically to ensure sitemaps match reality and that important URLs are submitted. Combine with Reports (orphans, duplicates) and Verifications for a full picture of indexability and quality.