Sitemap Domain

Keep sitemap URLs on the correct domain

Google ignores sitemap entries from domains it cannot verify as yours — cross-domain URLs are simply skipped, meaning those pages lose the crawl-discovery benefit of the sitemap.

Quick Reference

• Every <loc> URL must use the same domain and protocol (https://www.example.com) as the sitemap file itself
• Cross-domain URLs in a sitemap are ignored by Google
• Mixing http:// and https:// URLs in one sitemap creates conflicting signals
• Mixing www and non-www variants indicates a canonicalization issue to fix first

Check

Parse all <loc> values in the sitemap and extract the protocol and hostname. Flag any URL whose protocol or hostname differs from the sitemap's own URL. Common mismatches: http vs https, www vs non-www, old domain vs new domain.

Fix

Update all <loc> URLs to use the canonical-url protocol and hostname. If the site is on https://www.example.com, every sitemap URL must start with https://www.example.com/. Regenerate and resubmit the sitemap.

Explain

Explain why Google restricts sitemap URLs to the same domain, how cross-domain URLs are silently dropped, and how domain mismatches in a sitemap reveal underlying canonicalization problems.

Code Review

Review metadata generation, rendered HTML, structured data, and response headers related to Keep sitemap URLs on the correct domain. Flag exact routes or templates where search-facing output violates the rule, and describe how to verify the final page output.

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For full implementation details, code examples, and framework-specific guidance, see references/rule.md.

Rule page: https://frontendchecklist.io/en/rules/seo/sitemap-domain

Keep sitemap URLs on the correct domain

Checks that all URLs in the sitemap belong to the same domain and protocol as the sitemap itself.

Priority: medium · Difficulty: beginner · Time: 10 min

--- The sitemaps protocol requires that all <loc> URLs belong to the same domain as the sitemap file. Google enforces this as a security boundary — only verified domain owners can influence crawling of a domain.

Code Example

Sitemap hosted at the main production sitemap URL:

<url>
  <loc>https://old-domain.com/page</loc>   <!-- Wrong domain — ignored -->
</url>
<url>
  <loc>http://www.example.com/page</loc>   <!-- Wrong protocol — inconsistent -->
</url>
<url>
  <loc>https://example.com/page</loc>      <!-- Missing www — canonicalization issue -->
</url>

Why It Matters

Google ignores sitemap entries from domains it cannot verify as yours — cross-domain URLs are simply skipped, meaning those pages lose the crawl-discovery benefit of the sitemap.

Domain Consistency Rules

• All <loc> values must match the domain of the sitemap file itself
• All URLs must use the same protocol (https://)
• www vs non-www must be consistent (use whichever is the canonical-url version)

✅ Correct Domain-Consistent Sitemap

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
  <url>
    <loc>https://www.example.com/</loc>
  </url>
  <url>
    <loc>https://www.example.com/about</loc>
  </url>
  <url>
    <loc>https://www.example.com/blog/my-post</loc>
  </url>
</urlset>

Common Causes of Domain Mismatches

#

HTTP → HTTPS Migration

After migrating, a statically generated sitemap may still contain old protocol values. Regenerate the sitemap with the new base URL instead of leaving stale protocol variants behind.

www vs. non-www

If the non-www host redirects to the www host, all sitemap URLs should use the final canonical-url host. Check your canonical URL configuration in the CMS or framework so the sitemap and canonicals match.

Domain Rename / Rebrand

After moving from old-brand.com to new-brand.com, update the sitemap generator's base URL config and resubmit. Remove the old sitemap from Search Console.

Automated Prevention

Always configure sitemaps with an explicit base URL rather than relative paths:

// Next.js: next.config.js
module.exports = {
  env: {
    NEXT_PUBLIC_SITE_URL: 'https://www.example.com',
  },
}

// sitemap.ts
const baseUrl = process.env.NEXT_PUBLIC_SITE_URL

  return pages.map(page => ({
    url: `${baseUrl}/${page.slug}`,
  }))
}

Exceptions

• Staging, utility, login, account, or internal search pages may intentionally use different crawl or index signals if they are not meant to rank.
• Temporary migration states can produce noisy intermediate signals; flag the live production URL pattern, not one-off transition artifacts.
• When redirects, canonicals, robots directives, or indexability signals conflict, fix the strongest final signal first instead of reporting every downstream symptom as a separate blocker.

Standards

• Use these references as the standard for the final search-facing HTML, metadata, and crawl behavior.
• Check the implementation against Google: Sitemap best practices before treating the rule as satisfied.
• Check the implementation against Sitemaps XML format before treating the rule as satisfied.

Verification

Automated Checks

• Inspect rendered HTML and HTTP headers to confirm the expected metadata or crawlability signal is present.
• Test the affected URL with Google Search Console or equivalent tooling where relevant.
• Re-crawl a representative page set after deployment.

Manual Checks

• Confirm the change does not create conflicting canonical-url, robots, or structured-data signals.