<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!--
  sitemap.xml for averon-systems.com

  Seven URLs since the hub restructure: the company hub, the two offer pages, the
  two Lead Growth System sub-pages, security and accessibility.

  The two standing rules, unchanged:

  1. NEVER list a #fragment as a separate <url>. Fragments are not crawlable
     URLs; Google discards them and an inflated sitemap of anchors is a known
     way to look spammy for zero gain. Section anchors are discovered from the
     sub-nav links on each offer page, which is what they are for.

  2. <lastmod> must be a real date on which the page CONTENT changed. Scripting
     it to today's date on every deploy is the most common sitemap mistake;
     Google learns the signal is noise and stops weighting it. Update it by
     hand, in the same commit that changes the copy.

  EVERY OFFER PAGE MUST BE LISTED. verify-dist.mjs (G3) fails the build when an
  offer page in dist is missing from this file or from llms.txt, so offer #3
  cannot ship unlisted.

  /privacy, /terms and /card are deliberately ABSENT: each carries noindex, and
  listing a noindexed URL in a sitemap sends Search Console two contradictory
  signals. verify-dist.mjs fails the build if one is listed.

  /pricing, /meet-the-team and /department-builds are ABSENT because they are not
  final URLs: the edge answers each with a 301 to its new page (terraform
  averon-websites, redirects), and a sitemap lists only the page a crawler should
  keep.

  /accessibility IS LISTED, and the asymmetry with /terms is deliberate. It is the one
  legal-adjacent page that should be findable: it carries the barrier-reporting route,
  and a user with a disability (or a plaintiff's firm) finding it in search BEFORE a
  complaint is the entire reason it exists. Florida was the #2 web-accessibility filing
  jurisdiction in 2025 (961 federal filings, nearly double its 2024 total of 470;
  Seyfarth Shaw), so discoverability here is risk reduction, not an SEO play.

  Priorities are relative, not absolute. The hub and the two offer pages carry the
  conversion goal; the sub-pages are where an evaluator checks the detail; security
  and accessibility are supporting reassurance.
-->
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
  <url>
    <loc>https://averon-systems.com/</loc>
    <lastmod>2026-10-02</lastmod>
    <changefreq>monthly</changefreq>
    <priority>1.0</priority>
  </url>
  <url>
    <loc>https://averon-systems.com/lead-growth</loc>
    <lastmod>2026-10-02</lastmod>
    <changefreq>monthly</changefreq>
    <priority>0.9</priority>
  </url>
  <url>
    <loc>https://averon-systems.com/ai-department</loc>
    <lastmod>2026-10-02</lastmod>
    <changefreq>monthly</changefreq>
    <priority>0.9</priority>
  </url>
  <url>
    <loc>https://averon-systems.com/lead-growth/pricing</loc>
    <lastmod>2026-10-02</lastmod>
    <changefreq>monthly</changefreq>
    <priority>0.8</priority>
  </url>
  <url>
    <loc>https://averon-systems.com/lead-growth/team</loc>
    <lastmod>2026-10-02</lastmod>
    <changefreq>monthly</changefreq>
    <priority>0.7</priority>
  </url>
  <url>
    <loc>https://averon-systems.com/security</loc>
    <lastmod>2026-09-30</lastmod>
    <changefreq>yearly</changefreq>
    <priority>0.6</priority>
  </url>
  <!-- Added 2026-09-16 with the page. Priority 0.5, the lowest on the site: it must be
       findable (see the note above) but it is not a page that should outrank an offer
       surface for a commercial query. -->
  <url>
    <loc>https://averon-systems.com/accessibility</loc>
    <lastmod>2026-10-02</lastmod>
    <changefreq>yearly</changefreq>
    <priority>0.5</priority>
  </url>
  <!-- /about REMOVED 2026-08-26: the page was deleted at Eric's direction because he
       does not want his personal information published. Delisted in the same commit
       that deleted the file. A sitemap that advertises a URL returning 404 is the
       fastest way to teach Search Console the feed is unreliable. -->
</urlset>
