Mistake: listing noindex URLs in the sitemap

Mistake: listing noindex URLs in the sitemap

A sitemap is a list of pages you want indexed. A noindex page is one you do not. Shipping both is a contradiction Search Console flags as "Submitted URL marked noindex" — and it erodes trust in the whole file.

Fix checklist:
— ✅ Every URL in the sitemap returns 200 and has no noindex directive (meta or X-Robots-Tag header)
— Check the HTTP header too, not just the HTML — CDN/edge rules add noindex invisibly
— Exclude paginated, filtered, and thank-you pages at the query layer, not by hand
— Same rule for robots.txt Disallow: blocked URLs do not belong in the sitemap

Definition of done: a script that fetches every sitemap URL and asserts 200 status + indexable headers. Zero exceptions allowed; one noindex URL means the generator query is wrong.