Of the 40 fully scanned U.S. state sites we tested, 24 (60%) have a sitemap problem. 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 fails if it fails any of these checks: Sitemap status, Sitemap XML, and Sitemap in robots.txt.
24 of 40
State sites that have a sitemap problem
60%
Share of tested state sites that fail these checks
16
Tested state sites that pass these checks
42 of 51
State sites fully scanned
The 24 state sites that have a sitemap problem
Sorted by name. Each site links to its botability report and shows its botability and overall grades from the same scan.
| Site | Botability | Overall |
|---|---|---|
| dc.gov District of Columbia |
F | C |
| alabama.gov State of Alabama |
F | C |
| alaska.gov State of Alaska |
D | D |
| de.gov State of Delaware |
B | B |
| myflorida.gov State of Florida |
F | B |
| georgia.gov State of Georgia |
C | B |
| illinois.gov State of Illinois |
D | B |
| kentucky.gov State of Kentucky |
C | C |
| louisiana.gov State of Louisiana |
D | C |
| maine.gov State of Maine |
D | C |
| maryland.gov State of Maryland |
B | A |
| mississippi.gov State of Mississippi |
D | C |
| mo.gov State of Missouri |
B | B |
| nebraska.gov State of Nebraska |
B | A |
| nj.gov State of New Jersey |
D | B |
| nm.gov State of New Mexico |
D | A |
| nd.gov State of North Dakota |
D | B |
| oregon.gov State of Oregon |
F | C |
| ri.gov State of Rhode Island |
D | C |
| sd.gov State of South Dakota |
F | D |
| vermont.gov State of Vermont |
B | B |
| virginia.gov State of Virginia |
F | B |
| wv.gov State of West Virginia |
C | B |
| wyo.gov State of Wyoming |
D | B |
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. These botability checks 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
- State botability rankings
About this data
ScanGov scans the homepage of each county site on our county list. Scores come from the checks in the ScanGov standards. Sites were scanned between 10/2/2026 and 11/6/2026. Each site's report shows its own scan date. A site counts as fully scanned when its homepage loaded and sent us its page content. Averages, grade shares, failure rates, and ranks use fully scanned sites only. We could not fully scan 9 sites. They did not respond, blocked the scanner, or sent no page content. They appear in the table without grades, with their scan status, and are left out of every figure. Grades follow the ScanGov grade scale. Rank follows the ScanGov ranking method. The full dataset, with every county's raw results, is in the ScanGov data repository.
2 fully scanned state sites have no result for these checks and are left out of the share.