Sitecore, Umbraco and Kentico SEO: the redirect, sitemap and robots.txt defaults in each platform, and the ones that catch teams out

Sitecore, Umbraco and Kentico can all run a site that ranks well, but each one ships different defaults, and the defaults are where SEO goes wrong. Umbraco creates a 301 redirect automatically when a published page's URL changes, but has no XML sitemap until you build one or install a package. Sitecore's cloud product generates a sitemap per site, yet writes a robots.txt that blocks every crawler if nobody enters rules. Kentico's Xperience redirects every alternative URL to one canonical URL, but only stores edited URLs as redirects when an administrator turns that setting on. Check those three things first on whichever platform you run, then the headless front end if you have one.

The defaults side by side

Everything in this table comes from each vendor's current documentation, read on 22 October 2026.

Setting	Umbraco CMS	SitecoreAI (cloud)	Xperience by Kentico
Page URL changes after publishing	301 to the new URL, on by default	Redirect maps written by authors	301 only if "Store edited URLs as former URLs" is selected
XML sitemap	Not built in; build a template or add a package	Generated per site; needs a host name	Not listed among the documented features; ask how yours is produced
robots.txt	A file you maintain	A field on the site settings; empty means block everything	Not covered in the documentation index we read; ask your developer
Alternative URLs	umbracoUrlAlias masks the real URL	Server transfer rewrites	Vanity URLs that 301 to the canonical
Headless delivery	Content Delivery API, opt in	Your app reads redirects and schemas itself	Headless channels, with their own content retrieval

Umbraco SEO, where redirects are automatic and the sitemap is not

Redirects

Umbraco's URL Redirect Management notes the old URL whenever a publish changes a page's URL, and those of its descendants, and answers later requests for it with a "301 Redirect". The feature is on by default and the redirects can be listed and deleted from a dashboard in the Content section. It does not handle pattern rules, so a migration from another platform still needs rewrite rules at the web server or hosting layer.

Routing properties that change what Google sees

Umbraco has reserved property aliases that alter routing. Two need an SEO decision:

• umbracoUrlAlias gives a node extra full paths, and the alias "remains in the browser address bar as a 'mask' over the real URL". That is two addresses serving one page, so every page using an alias needs a canonical tag pointing at the main URL.
• umbracoRedirect creates a 302 temporary redirect. Google's redirect documentation says a temporary redirect shows the source page in search results, so use it only for moves you will reverse.

umbracoUrlName, by contrast, simply sets a cleaner URL segment than the node name, and is safe to use.

Sitemaps and the "Umbraco SEO package" question

Umbraco's own sitemap tutorial builds an XML sitemap with a document type and a Razor template, and points readers who are in a hurry to a community package, SEO Tool Kit. That is the honest answer to "which Umbraco SEO package": the platform leaves sitemaps, meta fields and similar tooling to your build or to marketplace packages, so judge any package on whether it outputs a valid sitemap, editable titles and descriptions and canonical tags. The same tutorial suggests a crawl delay line in robots.txt; Google's robots.txt specification says fields "such as crawl-delay aren't supported", so it has no effect on Googlebot.

Headless Umbraco

The Content Delivery API is opt in, and once enabled "all your published content will be made available to the public by default". Use the allowed and disallowed content type settings so internal types are not exposed, and make sure the front end renders titles, descriptions and canonical tags into the HTML. Our headless CMS SEO page lists the fields to model.

Sitecore SEO, and why robots.txt comes first

Sitecore's cloud product, documented as SitecoreAI, groups its SEO features on one SEO page: sitemaps, robots.txt, JSON-LD and redirects. The on-premise Sitecore XP 10.5 has its own documentation set.

robots.txt

The robots.txt guide warns that if you add no rules, the file is written as "User-agent: *" and "Disallow: /", which means no crawler can access the content. Rules go in the Robots content field on the site's Settings item, and the change only reaches the file after you republish the whole site. SXA adds the sitemap location to robots.txt for you.

Sitemaps

A sitemap is generated for each site, but the sitemap guide says it returns a 404 if both the Host Name and TargetHostName fields on the site item are empty. It also lists publishable items from content management data without checking which are actually published, so pages sitting in a final workflow state can appear before they go live. A workflow keeps them out.

Redirects

Authors manage redirects as redirect maps in the Content Editor, with 301, 302 or server transfer as the type, and Sitecore recommends about 200 entries per map at most. On a headless site the front end must query the rules and apply the first match itself, as the developer redirect guide describes. A rule that exists in the CMS but never reaches the rendering host does nothing.

Structured data

Headless SXA sites can map fields to Schema.org types and expose them through the Layout Service, but the JSON-LD guide notes the Schema container item is not created automatically and the rendering host must write the script tag. Test a page with validator.schema.org after the first deployment.

Kentico SEO, one canonical URL and a setting for redirects

Kentico's current product is Xperience by Kentico; its documentation also carries upgrade guides from Kentico Xperience 13, the earlier version. The page URL guide, read on 22 October 2026, describes three kinds of URL:

• System URL, built from the page's place in the content tree. The slug is generated from the title when the page is created and does not change when the title changes later.
• Vanity URLs, several per page if you like, set by marketers.
• Canonical URL. All URLs representing a page redirect to it with a "301 Moved Permanently". The system URL is canonical by default, and you can make a vanity URL canonical instead.

The trap is in former URLs. Redirects created when a page is unpublished or deleted with a redirect are kept by default, but an edited slug only becomes a stored 301 if the website channel has Store edited URLs as former URLs selected. Deleting a page without creating a redirect removes all its former URLs, and the guide warns that changing a language code name or the primary language breaks former URLs for those language variants. Developers can add redirects from custom paths with the IWebPageRedirectManager API, which is meant for paths that are not live pages, such as old URLs after an upgrade.

A migration checklist that works on all three

1. Export every live URL from the old site and from Search Console before you switch.
2. Map each one to its new address and load the map as 301s, in the platform or at the server.
3. Confirm robots.txt on the new site allows crawling, especially on Sitecore.
4. Generate the sitemap, check every URL in it returns 200, and submit it in Search Console.
5. Check canonical tags on pages with aliases or vanity URLs.
6. Crawl the new site for 302s that should be 301s. Our Craft CMS SEO page shows the same 302 default problem on another platform.

Questions about Sitecore, Umbraco and Kentico SEO

Does Umbraco have built-in SEO?

It has automatic 301 redirects when URLs change and routing properties for custom URL segments. Sitemaps, meta fields and similar tools come from your own templates or from packages such as SEO Tool Kit, which Umbraco's documentation names.

Why is my Sitecore site not being crawled?

Check robots.txt first. Sitecore's documentation says an empty Robots content field produces a file that disallows all crawlers. Add your rules, then republish the whole site so the file updates.

Does Kentico create redirects when I change a URL slug?

Only if "Store edited URLs as former URLs" is selected for the website channel. Redirects from unpublishing or deleting a page with a redirect are stored by default.

Is a headless setup worse for SEO on these platforms?

Not if the front end renders complete HTML with titles, canonical tags and structured data, and applies the CMS redirects. On all three, a headless build moves that work from the CMS to your developers.

What an assistant says about your platform choice

Teams choosing between these platforms now ask ChatGPT or Gemini "which .NET CMS is best for SEO", and buyers of the sites built on them ask assistants about the businesses themselves. Vendors are moving into this space too: SitecoreAI's documentation, read on 22 October 2026, describes an AEO/SEO Researcher agent that audits a site for search and answer engine performance.

Seeing which brands an assistant actually names is a separate measurement from crawling your own site. AI Knows Us puts your buyers' questions to ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude and Google AI Overviews and records which companies each answer names and which pages it cites, whichever CMS those pages run on.