The sitemap was broken and nobody noticed, because a redirect plugin made every error look like a working page.
What I did
I found the XML sitemap was not working. Its address showed the homepage instead of a list of pages. A plugin was sending every missing page to the homepage, so the broken sitemap looked normal. I switched that plugin off and reset the sitemap settings.
The sitemap now returns a real list of 86 pages across 2 files. Missing pages now return a proper 404 error instead of the homepage.
Did it work
It worked
What you should do
Open your sitemap address in a browser. If you see your homepage instead of a list of links, it is broken. Then check whether any plugin redirects all 404 errors to the homepage.
How long it took
About an hour, including the checks
An XML sitemap is a file that lists the pages you want Google to find. It should look like a plain list of web addresses, not like your website.
Why it matters
On this site, the sitemap address opened the homepage. The robots.txt file also sent Google to that same address. So Google was being pointed at a sitemap that did not exist.
Nobody noticed because of one plugin. It sent every missing page to the homepage. That hides problems, because a broken address and a working one look the same. Google calls this a soft 404: a page that says everything is fine when it is not.
How to check your own site
Open yoursite.com/sitemap_index.xml or yoursite.com/sitemap.xml. You should see a list of links.
Open a made-up address such as yoursite.com/test-12345. You should get a 404 error page, not your homepage.
Open yoursite.com/robots.txt and check that the Sitemap line points to the address that worked in the first step.
404what a missing page returns now, not the homepage
What this changed in how I work
A plugin that hides errors also hides your problems. On every new site I now open a made-up address before I check anything else.
End of Lab entry No. 001
Part of The SEO Lab, an open notebook of real SEO work, published as it happens.Recorded 6 October 2026. Filed under Observations. Everything here comes from work I did myself. If a number looks wrong, ask me how it was measured.
