Sitemap Analyzer: Sitemap URL Count Checker & robots.txt Sitemap Finder

Analyze any site's XML sitemap in one call — auto-discovers it, counts URLs, and flags issues. No API key, pay per site.

▶ Live on the Apify Store: https://apify.com/eliai/sitemap-analyzer — run it instantly, or call it as an agent tool via Apify MCP.

What it does

• Auto-finds the sitemap via robots.txt then /sitemap.xml (or accepts a direct sitemap URL)
• Detects sitemapindex vs urlset
• Counts URLs and how many carry <lastmod> dates
• Flags issues: >50,000 URLs, >50MB, no lastmod, non-HTTPS URLs, empty sitemap
• Returns a sample of URLs

Input

{ "url": "https://example.com" }

or bulk:

{ "urls": ["https://a.com", "https://b.com"], "maxUrls": 10 }

Output (per site)

{
  "url": "https://example.com",
  "sitemapUrl": "https://example.com/sitemap.xml",
  "type": "urlset",
  "urlCount": 1240,
  "withLastmod": 1240,
  "issues": [],
  "summary": "urlset, 1240 URLs, 0 issue(s)"
}

Use cases

SEO audits, site migrations, and crawl-budget checks — by hand or wired into an agent. Pairs with our SEO & Tech Auditor and Broken Link Checker.

Pricing

$0.02 per site analyzed — flat, however many URLs the sitemap holds. The closest incumbents charge per URL extracted (measured 2026-08-07): apify/sitemap-extractor at $0.0001–0.0005 per URL and onescales/sitemap-url-extractor at $0.0026–0.03 per URL — so a 1,000-URL sitemap costs $0.10–$0.50 or $2.60+ there versus $0.02 here. (Those actors return every URL as a dataset item; this one returns counts, issues, and a URL sample — pick per job.)

Limits

• Default run settings: 256 MB memory, 600 s timeout. Change them per run under Options if a large input needs more.
• Time: the prefilled example finished in 2 s on 2026-10-31; run time grows with the number of inputs.

FAQ

How do I find a website's sitemap URL? You don't have to — pass the site's homepage and the actor discovers the sitemap via robots.txt, then falls back to /sitemap.xml. A direct sitemap URL also works.

Does it handle sitemap index files? Yes — it detects whether the file is a sitemapindex (a sitemap of sitemaps) or a plain urlset, and reports which.

What issues does it flag? Sitemaps over 50,000 URLs or 50 MB (the sitemap-protocol limits search engines enforce), missing <lastmod> dates, non-HTTPS URLs, and empty sitemaps.

Why do the 50,000-URL / 50 MB limits matter? They come from the sitemaps.org protocol — files beyond them must be split into a sitemap index, or crawlers may ignore the overflow entirely.

Can I check many sites in one run? Yes — pass an array in urls (capped by maxUrls). Billing is $0.02 per site analyzed, so the cap is also your budget cap.

Does <lastmod> still matter for SEO? Google has said it uses lastmod as a crawl-scheduling signal when it's accurate — and a sitemap where nothing carries dates gives crawlers nothing to schedule on, which is why missing lastmod is flagged.

Related actors

Sitemap URLs that redirect are the classic post-migration defect — Redirect Chain Checker shows every hop and the final status for any URL, in bulk. See also Broken Link Checker and Website SEO Tech Auditor.

Changelog

• 2026-11-01: Page text only: a clearer page heading and a Limits section. Code, output and price are unchanged.

For AI agents

This Actor is built to be called by software, not just by people.

• Mount it directly as an MCP tool — no Store search, no ranking, just this one tool: https://mcp.apify.com/?actors=eliai/sitemap-analyzer
• Or call it over HTTP and get the results in the same request: POST https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/eliai~sitemap-analyzer/run-sync-get-dataset-items
• Costs are predictable before you call. Pricing is pay-per-event (see Pricing above), so an agent can budget a run in advance instead of discovering the bill afterwards.
• Send only the field you mean. If you pass the bulk field, it is used on its own; the single-value field is a fallback, never merged into your request. You are charged for the items you sent and nothing else.