Ubersuggest will look for the sitemap inside the robots.txt file. So, it is very common to see an audit issue “Missing sitemap” even when you have it already inside your Google search console.
Because of that, we advise adding your sitemap URL in your robots.txt file to ensure Ubersuggest detects, but it's also considered a good practice.
But, how can you do that?
Before knowing how to add your sitemap, it is important to understand that the robots.txt file is the first place crawlers visit when accessing a website. And you need to provide the details of every page on your website that you want the search engines to discover. Plus, the location of your sitemap is also very important.
Adding your Sitemap:
Step 1: Find your sitemap URL.
By default, the URL of your sitemap will be /sitemap.xml. It is also important to mention some websites have more than one. If you are using Yoast SEO, a sitemap index will be added to /sitemap_index.xml.
If you have access to your website File Manager, you can search for XML sitemap files. In case you don’t find one, you can create a sitemap yourself. There are a lot of tools available on the web.
Step 2: Find your robots.txt
First, type your domain after robots.txt to check if you have a robots.txt file available.
For example, neilpatel.com/robots.txt
If you don’t find one, you will need to create and add it to the root directory of your web server. You should consider getting the help of a developer.
Normally, you put the file where your site’s main “index.html” lies.
Step 3: Adding Sitemap into Robots.
For this to happen, you will need to access your web server. Unless you use an SEO plug-in that manages the robots without the need to check the server.
So, to add your sitemap to your robots, all you have to do is place a directive with the URL in your robots.txt file as we show below:
Sitemap: https://www.apple.com/sitemap.xml
So, the robots.txt file should look like this:
User-agent:*
Allow:
Sitemap: http://befound.pt/sitemap.xml
NOTE: The directive containing the sitemap location can be placed anywhere in the robots.txt file. It is independent of the user-agent line, so it does not matter where it is placed.
You can always find more information about Ubersuggest in our Knowledge Base:
Understanding the Site Audit
Running a Site Audit with Ubersuggest
If you have any questions, please reach out via chat or email us at support@ubersuggest.com.