# Sitemap & RSS New Page Monitor - Website Change Alerts (`cuddly_wattle/sitemap-rss-new-page-monitor`) Actor

Track any website for new pages, posts, products or articles. Auto-discovers sitemaps (robots.txt, indexes, .gz) and RSS/Atom feeds, extracts URLs with dates, titles and images, and returns only NEW (or updated) pages since the last run. No proxies, respects robots.txt.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/cuddly_wattle/sitemap-rss-new-page-monitor.md
- **Developed by:** [Kyle Duncan](https://apify.com/cuddly_wattle) (community)
- **Categories:** SEO tools, Automation
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $0.80 / 1,000 page results

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

An Actor is a serverless cloud program that runs on the Apify platform. It has two run modes.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.

Apify vocabulary and the platform model are defined once, in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md.

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.

Do not guess an integration path. Every one of them is in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md: the Apify MCP server, Agent Skills with the Apify CLI, the JavaScript and Python clients, the REST API, and the account-free path for an agent with no human to sign in. It also carries the rule on stating cost before the first paid run.

For examples already wired to this Actor's own input schema, see the [API](#api) section below.

Each client library has reference documentation the quickstart does not restate: [JavaScript/TypeScript](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md) (`npm install apify-client`) and [Python](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md) (`pip install apify-client`).

# README

## Sitemap & RSS New Page Monitor: Website Change Alerts

**Know the moment any website publishes something new.** Give it a website, sitemap or RSS/Atom feed and it returns every page URL with its date, title, image and summary. Schedule it, and you get **only the NEW pages** since the last run (optionally **updated** pages too): new blog posts, product pages, landing pages, press releases, job pages or docs.

It discovers sources automatically from `Sitemap:` lines in robots.txt, `/sitemap.xml`, sitemap indexes, gzipped sitemaps, WordPress `wp-sitemap.xml`, Google News and image sitemaps, and `<link rel="alternate">` RSS/Atom feeds. It needs **no login and no proxies, and it respects robots.txt**.

### Use cases

- **Competitor monitoring:** new product, pricing or landing pages the day they go live
- **Content & SEO teams:** track competitors' publishing velocity; get every new article in Slack or Sheets
- **News & research:** a feed of new pages from government, investor-relations or press sites
- **E-commerce:** new product URLs on competitor stores (works great with Shopify and WordPress sites)
- **Lead generation:** new location or job pages as buying signals
- **AI / RAG pipelines:** fresh URLs to crawl and embed, without recrawling whole sites

### Features

- ✅ Websites, sitemaps (index, .gz, news, image) **and** RSS/Atom in one Actor
- ✅ **Monitor mode** (on by default): returns only new URLs, so you pay only for new pages
- ✅ First run returns the latest 20 pages so you see results right away; everything else becomes the baseline
- ✅ Optional **updated-page** detection via `<lastmod>`
- ✅ Filters: URL contains or doesn't contain, child-sitemap filter, date window
- ✅ Clean rows: url, title, published and modified dates, author, summary, categories, image

### Input example

```json
{
  "startUrls": ["https://github.blog/feed/", "https://www.allbirds.com", "https://wordpress.org/news/"],
  "onlyNew": true,
  "urlIncludes": ["/products/", "/news/", "/blog/"],
  "monitorKey": "competitors"
}
```

Schedule it hourly or daily in Apify (Schedules), and connect the dataset to Slack, email, Google Sheets, Zapier, Make or n8n.

### Output example

```json
{
  "site": "https://github.blog/feed/",
  "sourceType": "rss",
  "sourceUrl": "https://github.blog/feed/",
  "url": "https://github.blog/news-insights/company-news/github-universe-2026-evolving-every-layer-of-the-stack/",
  "title": "GitHub Universe 2026: Evolving every layer of the stack",
  "publishedAt": "2026-10-28T16:09:28+00:00",
  "lastModified": null,
  "author": "Jay Parikh",
  "summary": "Today, we laid out our vision for GitHub…",
  "categories": ["Company news"],
  "imageUrl": null,
  "changeType": "new",
  "previousLastModified": null,
  "scrapedAt": "2026-11-01T16:20:00+00:00"
}
```

Per-site results (sources used, URLs found, returned) are saved to the key-value store as `SUMMARY`.

### Notes

- Sites with no sitemap or feed (or that block them in robots.txt) are reported in `SUMMARY` and skipped.
- Some platforms (e.g. Shopify) refresh `<lastmod>` very often, so keep **updated pages** off unless you need it.

### How much does it cost?

**$0.0008 per page result = $0.80 per 1,000 pages** (+ $0.00005 per run start). You pay once for each page URL returned in the dataset. In monitor mode (default) only new pages since the last run are returned and charged (plus updated pages if you turn that on); the first run returns the latest 20 pages per site as a sample and saves the rest as a free baseline. Errors and skipped sites are free.

**Examples:** 1,000 new pages = $0.80. A daily run on a blog that published 3 new posts = 3 × $0.0008 = $0.0024 + $0.00005 start ≈ $0.0025. A day with no new pages costs only the start fee.

You set a maximum charge per run, so you never pay more than you allow. Apify's free plan includes monthly credit, enough to try this Actor at no cost.

### FAQ

**Do I need to know the sitemap URL?**

No. Give a homepage; we check robots.txt, common sitemap paths, sitemap indexes, .gz files and RSS/Atom links.

**What counts as 'updated'?**

A URL whose lastmod date changed since the previous run (optional).

**Use cases?**

Competitor content tracking, new product alerts, news monitoring, SEO indexing checks, feeding new pages into an LLM pipeline.

**Is it legal?**

It only reads public data that the site or platform publishes openly (no login, no bypassing). You are responsible for using the data in line with applicable laws such as GDPR.

**Something broke or a field is missing?**

Open an issue on the Issues tab; we fix reported problems fast.

### More tools from this developer

**Jobs & recruiting:** [Career Page Jobs Scraper: Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby + 3 more](https://apify.com/cuddly_wattle/ats-jobs-monitor) · [Greenhouse Jobs Scraper & New Jobs Monitor](https://apify.com/cuddly_wattle/greenhouse-jobs-scraper) · [Lever Jobs Scraper & New Jobs Monitor](https://apify.com/cuddly_wattle/lever-jobs-scraper) · [Ashby Jobs Scraper & New Jobs Monitor](https://apify.com/cuddly_wattle/ashby-jobs-scraper) · [Workable Jobs Scraper & New Jobs Monitor](https://apify.com/cuddly_wattle/workable-jobs-scraper) · [SmartRecruiters Jobs Scraper & New Jobs Monitor](https://apify.com/cuddly_wattle/smartrecruiters-jobs-scraper)

**E-commerce:** [Shopify & WooCommerce Scraper + Price & Stock Monitor](https://apify.com/cuddly_wattle/shopify-woocommerce-price-monitor)

**Websites & SEO:** [Bulk PageSpeed & Core Web Vitals Checker](https://apify.com/cuddly_wattle/pagespeed-lighthouse-bulk-auditor) · [Bulk Domain WHOIS, DNS & SSL Checker (RDAP)](https://apify.com/cuddly_wattle/domain-whois-dns-ssl-lookup) · [Tech Stack Detector](https://apify.com/cuddly_wattle/website-tech-stack-detector)

**Apps, data & research:** [App Store Reviews Scraper & Monitor + App Details](https://apify.com/cuddly_wattle/app-store-reviews-monitor) · [Hacker News Scraper](https://apify.com/cuddly_wattle/hacker-news-scraper)

# Changelog

This Actor's version history is a separate document: https://apify.com/cuddly_wattle/sitemap-rss-new-page-monitor/changelog.md

# Actor input Schema

## `startUrls` (type: `array`):

One per line: a website (https://example.com — sitemaps and feeds are discovered automatically), a sitemap URL (…/sitemap.xml, sitemap index or .xml.gz) or an RSS/Atom feed URL.

## `onlyNew` (type: `boolean`):

Remember URLs already seen (per Monitor key) and return only new ones. Turn off to export every URL each run.

## `firstRunLatest` (type: `integer`):

On the first monitor run all URLs are saved as a baseline; this many of the most recent are returned so you can see results immediately.

## `detectUpdates` (type: `boolean`):

Report pages whose sitemap <lastmod> / feed date got newer. Note: some platforms refresh lastmod very often.

## `monitorKey` (type: `string`):

Separate memory for each watch list.

## `sourceMode` (type: `string`):

What to discover when you give a website URL.

## `urlIncludes` (type: `array`):

Keep only URLs containing one of these strings, e.g. /blog/, /products/, /jobs/.

## `urlExcludes` (type: `array`):

Drop URLs containing any of these strings, e.g. /tag/, /page/.

## `sitemapIncludes` (type: `array`):

For sitemap indexes: read only child sitemaps whose URL contains one of these strings (e.g. 'post', 'product').

## `publishedWithinDays` (type: `integer`):

Skip URLs whose date is older than this (URLs without dates are kept).

## `maxUrlsPerSite` (type: `integer`):

Safety cap on URLs read per site.

## `maxSitemaps` (type: `integer`):

Safety cap on sitemap and feed files fetched per site.

## `respectRobotsTxt` (type: `boolean`):

Skip sitemap/feed files disallowed by robots.txt.

## `maxConcurrency` (type: `integer`):

How many sites to process at once.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "startUrls": [
    "https://github.blog/feed/",
    "https://www.allbirds.com"
  ],
  "onlyNew": true,
  "firstRunLatest": 20,
  "detectUpdates": false,
  "monitorKey": "default",
  "sourceMode": "auto",
  "maxUrlsPerSite": 50000,
  "maxSitemaps": 50,
  "respectRobotsTxt": true,
  "maxConcurrency": 3
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (type: `string`):

Pages/posts found in sitemaps and feeds (only new ones in monitor mode)

## `summary` (type: `string`):

Per-input status and counts (SUMMARY record).

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "startUrls": [
        "https://github.blog/feed/",
        "https://www.allbirds.com"
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("cuddly_wattle/sitemap-rss-new-page-monitor").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = { "startUrls": [
        "https://github.blog/feed/",
        "https://www.allbirds.com",
    ] }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("cuddly_wattle/sitemap-rss-new-page-monitor").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "startUrls": [
    "https://github.blog/feed/",
    "https://www.allbirds.com"
  ]
}' |
apify call cuddly_wattle/sitemap-rss-new-page-monitor --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,cuddly_wattle/sitemap-rss-new-page-monitor"
        }
    }
}
```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/GPbG9ngP2x70aTquU/builds/OcpWsxd5IWDBniGCP/openapi.json