Published September 7, 2026.
A sitemap can return successfully while still omitting the day's articles or including the wrong routes. Compare its contents to the release manifest.
Define the expected set
Start with exact canonical URLs from the approved batch. Keep Blog and Research families separate. Record the production hostname and deployment SHA so the comparison is reproducible.
Compare both directions
Identify expected URLs absent from the sitemap and unexpected new URLs that were not in the batch. Request each listed route, check its self-canonical, and confirm the sitemap belongs to the same production domain.
Treat dates carefully
If the sitemap exposes modification dates, they must reflect the site's truthful policy. Do not rewrite publication history or touch unrelated entries simply to make a daily report look uniform.
Fix generator defects in the repository and redeploy the exact state. Search-engine submission is outside this routine; the controllable finish line is a correct, reachable sitemap aligned with live canonical pages.