Sitemap contains dead URLs

What this means

Every URL in your sitemap should return a 200 response. If Googlebot fetches a sitemap entry and gets a 404, it flags the URL as dead and may not revisit it even after the underlying problem is fixed. A sitemap with dead URLs also dilutes crawl budget across non-existent pages instead of directing it towards the ones that matter.

The check tests each URL in your sitemap and flags any that return a 4xx response or fail to connect.

How to fix it

The audit output lists each failing URL. For each one, choose one of these actions:

If the page was deleted: remove the URL from your sitemap.
If the page was moved: update the sitemap entry to the new URL and set up a 301 redirect from the old path.
If the page should exist: fix the underlying issue causing the 404.

Removing a dead URL from a static sitemap

Edit sitemap.xml and delete the <url> block for the removed page:

<!-- Remove this entire block -->
<url>
  <loc>https://yourdomain.com/deleted-page</loc>
  <lastmod>2024-01-01</lastmod>
</url>

Updating a dynamically generated sitemap

If your sitemap is generated automatically, fix the data source so it only includes live pages.

Next.js App Router — ensure app/sitemap.ts only returns published, live content:

import type { MetadataRoute } from 'next'

export default async function sitemap(): Promise<MetadataRoute.Sitemap> {
  const posts = await getPublishedPosts() // must return only live pages
  return posts.map(post => ({
    url: `https://yourdomain.com/blog/${post.slug}`,
    lastModified: post.updatedAt,
  }))
}

SvelteKit — update the data source in your src/routes/sitemap.xml/+server.ts endpoint to filter out unpublished or deleted content.

Nuxt with @nuxtjs/sitemap — update the data source referenced in your sitemap configuration so deleted pages are no longer included.

Verify the fix

After updating the sitemap, confirm each previously-failing URL now returns 200:

curl -o /dev/null -s -w "%{http_code}" https://yourdomain.com/previously-dead-page

Confirm the URL no longer appears in your sitemap:

curl -s https://yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml | grep 'previously-dead-page'

Re-run orino audit to confirm the check passes.