<b>Failure mode: pages reachable only via the sitemap</b>

<b>Failure mode: pages reachable only via the sitemap</b>

Programmatic sets often have no internal path to the individual page — the sitemap is the only entry point. Google treats sitemap-only URLs as low priority and crawls them slowly or never. They look orphaned because they are.

Internal-link gate:
— Step 1. Owner: dev. Every generated page must receive at least 3 internal links from other crawlable pages (hub, siblings, related-by-data).
— Step 2. Owner: SEO. Run a crawl starting from the homepage only — no sitemap. Gate: every published URL is discoverable within 4 clicks.
— Step 3. Owner: dev. Build sibling/related modules from the data (same category, nearby geo, similar attribute), not random.
— Step 4. Owner: SEO. Report orphan count after each deploy. Gate: orphan count = 0.

Guardrail: the sitemap is a hint, never the primary discovery path.

Ship gate: don't publish until all boxes are checked.

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Рядом по теме: @CrawlAndRender (там про crawl efficiency)