Sitemap Pages Not Found

What This Means

One or more URLs listed in the XML sitemap returned a 4xx (typically 404 Not Found) HTTP response when the platform attempted to crawl them. The sitemap is referencing pages that no longer exist.

Why It Matters for SEO

A sitemap is meant to be an authoritative list of your indexable pages. When it contains dead URLs, crawlers waste budget fetching 404 responses for pages that no longer exist. Over time, a sitemap with many dead URLs signals poor maintenance and reduces the search engine's confidence in the sitemap as a reliable guide to the site's content.

What the Platform Checks

The platform crawls each URL listed in the sitemap and records the HTTP response. Fires for each sitemap URL that returns a 4xx error code.

How to Fix It

• Remove all 4xx URLs from the XML sitemap immediately.
• If the content has moved to a new URL: update the sitemap entry to the new URL and ensure a 301 redirect is in place.
• Configure your sitemap generator to automatically exclude 4xx pages — most plugins do this, but check your sitemap generation settings.
• Set up a regular sitemap audit process to catch dead entries as content is removed or migrated.