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A reproducible protocol for measuring and comparing XML sitemap delivery quality. Covers TTFB, URL yield, entry format compliance, and AI-legibility signals.
Published: 2026-04-25|Revised: 2026-05-26|Publisher: AnswerShareWhat this measuresSitemap delivery is the first gate AI crawlers hit.
Before an AI system can index, parse, or cite your content, it must successfully fetch and traverse your sitemap tree. This benchmark measures that delivery quality across four dimensions.
TTFBTime to First ByteElapsed time from sitemap HTTP request to first byte of response. The primary latency signal AI crawlers evaluate before reading any URL entry.
Target: <=200msURL YieldURL YieldFraction of sitemap entries that resolve to valid 200 responses on re-fetch. Low yield indicates stale entries or server instability.
Target: >=95%Entry FormatEntry Format ComplianceConformance to the sitemap protocol: valid XML, correct namespace, <loc> tags present, <lastmod> in ISO 8601 format, priority in 0-1 range.
Target: 100%AI-LegibilityAI-Legibility ScoreComposite signal: presence of <lastmod>, frequency of update, URL path depth <= 4, and absence of session parameters that defeat deduplication.
Target: >=0.80Measurement protocolReproducible. Citable. Timestamped.
Every benchmark run is logged with request timestamps, response headers, and raw payload hashes. Any third party can reproduce our scores using the published methodology below.
Measurement commands (AnswerShareBot/1.0)# 1. Fetch sitemap index (User-Agent: AnswerShareBot/1.0) curl -sI -A "AnswerShareBot/1.0" https://example.com/sitemap.xml # Record: HTTP status, TTFB (time_starttransfer), Content-Type, Last-Modified # 2. Parse and validate sitemap XML curl -sL -A "AnswerShareBot/1.0" https://example.com/sitemap.xml | xmllint --noout - # Record: parse success, entry count, unique <loc> count # 3. Sample URL yield (20% random sample, max 200 URLs) # For each sampled URL: HEAD request, record HTTP status # Yield = (count 200 responses) / (sample size) # 4. Entry format checks # - <lastmod> present: yes/no (fraction) # - <lastmod> ISO 8601: yes/no # - <priority> in [0,1]: yes/no # - URL depth <= 4 path segments: yes/no (fraction)Cohort results
100-site benchmark cohort — 2026-04-26
Measured across 100 public sites using AnswerShareBot/1.0 from a neutral data-center IP. Results are point-in-time; sites may have changed since publication.
| Domain | TTFB (ms) | URL Yield | Format | AI-Legibility | Pass/Fail |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| answershare.com | 48ms | 100% | Valid | 0.95 | PASS |
| top10lists.us | 32ms | 99.2% | Valid | 0.97 | PASS |
| cohort-median (n=100) | 312ms | 87.4% | 83% valid | 0.61 | -- |
| cohort-p25 | 148ms | 79.1% | -- | 0.44 | -- |
| cohort-p75 | 580ms | 94.8% | -- | 0.78 | -- |
Full cohort receipt (100 sites) available in frozen snapshot: /methodology/sitemap-benchmark/2026-04-26
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