Sitemap Audit for AEO

This skill provides methodology for auditing website sitemaps to identify AEO optimization opportunities, content gaps, and migration planning.

Why Sitemaps Matter for AEO

Crawl Discovery - LLMs/crawlers use sitemaps to find content
Content Inventory - Reveals what pages exist vs. what's missing
URL Structure - Poor slugs hurt LLM understanding
Junk Detection - Test pages, drafts pollute index
Migration Planning - Required for language/structure changes

Sitemap Audit Process

Step 1: Find All Sitemaps

Check these locations:

/sitemap.xml
/sitemap_index.xml
/sitemap-index.xml
/wp-sitemap.xml (WordPress default)
/page-sitemap.xml
/post-sitemap.xml
/robots.txt (often lists sitemap URL)

Step 2: Fetch & Parse Each Sitemap

For sitemap index, extract all child sitemaps:

<sitemap>
  <loc>https://example.com/page-sitemap.xml</loc>
</sitemap>

For regular sitemaps, extract all URLs:

<url>
  <loc>https://example.com/page/</loc>
  <lastmod>2024-01-01</lastmod>
</url>

Step 3: Categorize URLs

| Category | Examples | AEO Priority | |----------|----------|--------------| | Core Pages | /, /about/, /services/ | 🔴 Critical | | Service Pages | /service-name/ | 🔴 Critical | | Comparison Pages | /vs/competitor/ | 🔴 Critical | | Results/Portfolio | /results/, /case-studies/ | 🟠 High | | Blog Posts | /blog/post-name/ | 🟡 Medium | | Category Pages | /category/name/ | 🟡 Medium | | Legal Pages | /privacy/, /terms/ | ⚪ Low | | Junk Pages | /test/, /draft/, /elementor-123/ | 🗑️ Delete |

Step 4: Identify Issues

Junk Pages (Delete/Noindex):

/test/, /test-page/, /test123/
/draft-*, /preview-*
/elementor-*, /et_pb_* (page builder artifacts)
/page/2/, /page/3/ (pagination without content)
/?p=123 (parameter URLs)

Slug Issues:

Non-English slugs for international audience
Overly long slugs
Keyword-stuffed slugs
Inconsistent patterns

Missing Critical Pages:

No pricing/investment page
No comparison pages (/vs/*)
No dedicated founder/expert page
No FAQ page
No llms.txt

Stale Content:

lastmod older than 2 years
Blog posts from 3+ years ago
Outdated statistics pages

Step 5: URL Audit Checklist

For each important URL, check:

[ ] Slug is English (for international brands)
[ ] Slug is descriptive (not /page-123/)
[ ] Slug matches content (not misleading)
[ ] No duplicate content (same page, different URLs)
[ ] Proper hierarchy (/services/service-name/ not /service-name/)
[ ] Mobile version same URL (no /m/ or m. versions)

Migration Planning Template

When changing site structure:

## URL Migration Map

### Redirects Required

| Old URL | New URL | Type | Priority |
|---------|---------|------|----------|
| /old-page/ | /new-page/ | 301 | High |

### New Pages to Create

| URL | Purpose | Template |
|-----|---------|----------|
| /vs/competitor/ | Comparison | Use comparison template |

### Pages to Delete

| URL | Reason |
|-----|--------|
| /test/ | Junk |

### Redirect Implementation

For WordPress (.htaccess):
\`\`\`apache
RedirectPermanent /old-page/ /new-page/
\`\`\`

For WordPress (plugin):
- Use Redirection plugin
- Or RankMath/Yoast redirect manager

Multilingual Sitemap Considerations

For translated sites:

Check hreflang - Each URL should have alternates
Separate sitemaps per language - /en/sitemap.xml, /nl/sitemap.xml
Consistent slugs - /about/ (EN) ↔ /over-ons/ (NL) properly linked
No mixed content - Dutch slug with English content = confusion

Output Format

# Sitemap Audit: [Domain]

## Summary
- **Total URLs:** X
- **Core Pages:** X
- **Blog Posts:** X
- **Junk Pages:** X (to delete)

## Sitemaps Found
- [URL 1] (X URLs)
- [URL 2] (X URLs)

## Issues Found

### 🗑️ Junk Pages (Delete)
| URL | Reason |
|-----|--------|
| /test/ | Test page |

### ⚠️ Slug Issues
| URL | Issue | Suggested |
|-----|-------|-----------|
| /haartransplantatie/ | Dutch | /hair-transplant/ |

### ❌ Missing Pages
| Page | Why Needed |
|------|------------|
| /vs/competitor/ | Comparison for AEO |

### 📅 Stale Content
| URL | Last Modified |
|-----|---------------|
| /old-post/ | 2020-01-01 |

## Recommendations
1. [Priority action 1]
2. [Priority action 2]

Quick Reference

Common Sitemap Generators:

WordPress: Yoast, RankMath, default wp-sitemap
Shopify: Auto-generated
Next.js: next-sitemap package
Manual: xml-sitemaps.com

Sitemap Size Limits:

Max 50,000 URLs per sitemap
Max 50MB uncompressed
Use sitemap index for larger sites

Submission Points:

Google Search Console
Bing Webmaster Tools
Ping: https://www.google.com/ping?sitemap=URL