Case: 18,400 noindex URLs in sitemap, removed

Case: 18,400 noindex URLs in sitemap, removed
An ecommerce site listed filtered/sort URLs that all carried noindex. GSC reported a rising 'Excluded by noindex' count.
What we did:
— Queried which sitemap URLs returned a noindex meta or X-Robots header
— Found 18,400 of 96,000 entries conflicting
— Removed them from generation; kept only indexable URLs
Measured outcome over 4 weeks:
— 'Submitted URL marked noindex' errors: 18,400 → 0
— Valid indexed pages rose 6%
Checklist:
✅ Only canonical, indexable URLs in the sitemap
✅ No URL that returns noindex (meta or header)
✅ No URL canonicalized to a different address
Definition of done: zero noindex/canonical-mismatch URLs remain in any sitemap file.