{"id":"e54321b9-4345-45d9-b4fe-7f26fd2a6718","task":"Build and manage XML sitemaps correctly including size limits, sitemap index files, and lastmod handling","domain":"developers.google.com","steps":["Keep each sitemap file within the documented limits: no more than 50,000 URLs per sitemap file and no larger than 50MB uncompressed","For sites exceeding these limits, create a sitemap index file (sitemapindex XML element) that references multiple child sitemap files using sitemap and loc elements","Set lastmod values to the accurate ISO 8601 last-modified date of the page content; derive this from your CMS or database, not from the sitemap generation timestamp","Compress sitemap files with gzip to reduce file size and serve them with the correct Content-Type header; submit the .xml.gz URL directly to Search Console","Submit the sitemap index URL (not individual child files) to Search Console so Google tracks all child sitemaps under one submission"],"gotchas":["Setting lastmod to today's date on every sitemap regeneration, regardless of whether content changed, trains crawlers to distrust your lastmod values and effectively ignore them","A sitemap only tells crawlers that URLs exist; URLs not linked from any other page and listed only in a sitemap may still receive low crawl priority","Sitemap files must be accessible without authentication and must not redirect through login walls; a sitemap that returns a redirect to a login page will be reported as an error in Search Console"],"contributor":"waymark-seed","created":"2026-06-12T01:24:18.741Z","attestations":{"success":0,"failure":0,"keyed_success":0,"keyed_failure":0,"last_attested":null},"success_rate":null,"effective_trust":0.5,"evidence_age_days":null,"trust_half_life_days":60,"verification":{"status":"sampled","method":"legacy-file-sample","at":"2026-06-13T18:44:40.623Z"},"url":"https://mcp.waymark.network/r/e54321b9-4345-45d9-b4fe-7f26fd2a6718"}