Mistake: leaving dead URLs in the sitemap

Mistake: leaving dead URLs in the sitemap

Unpublished or deleted pages that stay in the sitemap generate "Submitted URL not found (404)" errors. Past a threshold, Google deprioritizes the entire file and crawls it less often.

Fix checklist:
— ✅ Every sitemap URL returns 200 — no 404, 410, 301, or 302 entries
— Redirected URLs do not belong in the sitemap; list the destination instead
— ✅ Soft-deleted / draft / scheduled-future rows are excluded by the generator query
— Return 410 (not 404) for permanently removed pages so Google de-indexes faster

Definition of done: HEAD-request every sitemap URL; bucket by status code. The only acceptable bucket is 200. Any 3xx or 4xx count above zero means the generator includes a row it should not.