Sitemap Contains Noindex URLs

What This Means

One or more URLs listed in the XML sitemap return a noindex directive when crawled. The sitemap is telling search engines "please index these pages" while the pages themselves are telling search engines "do not index me" — directly contradictory instructions.

Why It Matters for SEO

An XML sitemap is meant to be a clean list of URLs you want indexed. Including noindexed pages creates confusion: search engines must spend crawl budget on URLs they end up not indexing, and the conflicting signals can reduce trust in the sitemap as an authoritative list of indexable content.

This is most common when: pages are added to the sitemap automatically and then later noindexed without being removed from the sitemap, or when a sitemap is generated from a CMS that does not filter by indexability.

What the Platform Checks

The platform cross-references all URLs in the XML sitemap against the index directives found when crawling those pages. Fires for each sitemap URL that is also noindexed.

How to Fix It

• Remove all noindexed URLs from the XML sitemap.
• Configure your sitemap generator to automatically exclude noindexed pages. Most CMS SEO plugins (Yoast, Rank Math) have an option to exclude noindexed content from the sitemap.
• If using a manually maintained sitemap: review each entry against the page's current robots directive status.
• After fixing: resubmit the sitemap in Search Console for a fresh crawl.