Sitemap Analyzer

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.)

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.

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
• Pay with x402, without an Apify account. This Actor is whitelisted for agentic payments, so an agent holding USDC on Base can buy a prepaid token and spend it here. The minimum purchase is $1, the token balance is an absolute spending cap, and it expires 14 days after purchase.
• 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.