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Use when applies to sites that have recently migrated from HTTP to HTTPS, changed domain name, or have www/non-www redirect configurations. Use when sitemap submission reports low coverage.
Use when reviewing templates, rendered HTML, or shared components related to Implement accessible breadcrumb navigation. Validate the final browser-facing markup, not just the source framework abstraction.
Use when auditing metadata, crawlability, structured data, or indexability related to Implement valid BreadcrumbList schema. Verify the rendered HTML and HTTP response rather than relying only on source files.
Use when reviewing templates, rendered HTML, or shared components related to Declare UTF-8 character encoding. Validate the final browser-facing markup, not just the source framework abstraction.
Use when reviewing templates, rendered HTML, or shared components related to Set text direction for RTL languages. Validate the final browser-facing markup, not just the source framework abstraction.
Use when auditing a site's meta tag uniqueness, generating page-specific meta descriptions, or reviewing CMS templates that inject the same description globally.
Use when you need to find the 2-3 most popular and well-maintained npm packages relevant to a frontend checklist rule, validate they meet quality thresholds, and add them to the rule's frontmatter.
| name | sitemap-domain |
| description | Use when applies to sites that have recently migrated from HTTP to HTTPS, changed domain name, or have www/non-www redirect configurations. Use when sitemap submission reports low coverage. |
| metadata | {"category":"seo","priority":"medium","difficulty":"beginner","estimatedTime":"10","source":"frontendchecklist.io","url":"https://frontendchecklist.io/en/rules/seo/sitemap-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.
<loc> URL must use the same domain and protocol (https://www.example.com) as the sitemap file itselfhttp:// and https:// URLs in one sitemap creates conflicting signalswww and non-www variants indicates a canonicalization issue to fix firstParse 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.
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 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.
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.
For full implementation details, code examples, and framework-specific guidance,
see references/rule.md.
Rule page: https://frontendchecklist.io/en/rules/seo/sitemap-domain