Does my site have a sitemap?
Search engines find your pages two ways: by following links, and by reading your sitemap — a plain list of every page and when it last changed. A site without a sitemap still gets found, but more slowly, and pages that nothing links to can be missed entirely.
How it works
- Ask. Use the prompt below, or just say "check my sitemap". Your AI runs a findability check first — one look that covers your sitemap, your robots file, and whether anything has drifted out of date.
- It fixes what's missing. If there's no sitemap, it writes one from your actual pages — every page, with real last-updated dates. If your robots.txt doesn't point at the sitemap, it adds that one line without touching anything else in the file.
- You approve. Like every bernard change, the new files land in a draft with a preview link. Nothing is live until you press Approve — see How do I approve or undo changes?.
Keeping it fresh
A sitemap is a snapshot, so it can fall behind — you add a new page (Add a new page) and the sitemap doesn't know about it yet. bernard watches for exactly this: the findability check reports any pages missing from your sitemap, and your AI will offer the refresh whenever it notices drift. You never have to remember; you just have to say yes.
Once your sitemap exists, two more steps get you found faster: telling search engines about changes the moment you publish (Tell search engines my site changed) and the one thing only you can do — registering with Google (Get my site into Google). And if you publish posts or news, an RSS feed gives subscribers a way to follow you (Can my site have an RSS feed?).
The prompt
“Check how easily search engines can find my site, and if the sitemap or robots file is missing or out of date, fix them and show me the draft.”
The [bracketed] parts are yours to fill in. First time? Connect bernard to your AI over MCP — a one-time setup in bernard → your site → Use your own AI — then paste the prompt above.
Questions people ask
- What is a sitemap and why does my website need one?
- A sitemap is a small file (sitemap.xml) that lists every page on your site with the date it last changed — a table of contents for search engines. Without one, engines have to discover your pages by following links, which is slower and misses pages nothing links to.
- How do I add a sitemap to my website?
- If your site is hosted with bernard, just ask your AI to check your site's findability. It reads your actual pages, writes the sitemap, points your robots.txt at it, and gives you a preview — nothing is live until you approve.
- Do I need to update my sitemap when I add a page?
- Yes — a sitemap that's missing pages quietly undersells your site. bernard makes this easy: whenever you ask for anything SEO-ish, your AI checks whether the sitemap has fallen behind your pages and offers to refresh it.
- What is robots.txt?
- A one-page rulebook for search-engine crawlers at yoursite.com/robots.txt. bernard keeps yours simple and safe: it welcomes crawlers and points them at your sitemap. For safety, the file can only be changed through bernard's managed tool, so an accidental 'block everything' rule can't happen.