Sitemap Best Practices for Small Static Sites

A small site does not need an SEO agency. It needs a sitemap that matches what is actually published, with honest timestamps and no junk.

Include

• Every indexable URL you want crawled.
• A sensible <lastmod> (the file's last modified date is a fine default).
• Reasonable <changefreq> and <priority> values. Crawlers treat them as hints, not commands.

Exclude

• URLs that 404, redirect, or return a soft error.
• Internal search results, filter combinations, and pagination beyond the first few pages.
• Anything served only to authenticated users.

Common traps

• Listing the same URL twice with different <lastmod> values. Pick one.
• Setting <lastmod> to a future date. Crawlers distrust the whole file.
• Putting a noindex URL in the sitemap. Crawlers will distrust the file.

How YJTOON generates its sitemap

It is built from the same list of published posts that drives the index page. One source of truth, one place to fix when something drifts.