County websites with sitemap problems

Of the 2,401 fully scanned U.S. county sites we tested, 1,081 (45%) have a sitemap problem. Among states with at least 10 tested sites, Texas has the highest share at 79% and New Jersey the lowest at 23%. A sitemap is an XML file that lists the pages on a site. Search engines and AI agents read it to find pages they would otherwise miss, and robots.txt is where they look for its address. A site counts as failing when it fails any of the checks behind this page: Sitemap status, Sitemap XML, and Sitemap in robots.txt.

• Sitemap problem (1,079)
• Sitemap works (1,312), or no site on our list (325)
• Not fully scanned or no result for these checks (425)

26 of the 2,842 sites on our list could not be matched to a county boundary, 2 of them have a sitemap problem. They appear only in the table.

All 1,081 county sites have a sitemap problem

Listed by state, then name. Each site links to its botability report. Grades are the site's botability and overall grades from the same scan.

About these checks

A sitemap is an XML file that lists the pages on a site. Search engines and AI agents read it to find pages they would otherwise miss, and robots.txt is where they look for its address. The botability checks behind this page test each part of that. A site with a working sitemap and no robots.txt file counts as passing here, since there is no file to list the sitemap in.

• Sitemap status. The sitemap file loads and returns a successful response. Search engines cannot find all your pages.
• Sitemap XML. The sitemap file uses the required XML format. Search engines cannot read your sitemap.
• Sitemap in robots.txt. The robots.txt file links to the sitemap. Search engines take longer to find your pages.

Guidance

• Sitemap status standard, with how to fix it
• Sitemap XML standard, with how to fix it
• Sitemap in robots.txt standard, with how to fix it
• sitemaps.org
• Google Search Central
• Counties botability rankings