Sitemap Freshness Auditor

Fetches and audits one public XML sitemap for freshness and maintenance signals. It reports URL count, sitemap index entries, lastmod coverage, stale URL count, score, grade, issues, and recommendations.

Use cases

• Technical SEO checks before site launches and migrations.
• Scheduled monitoring for stale or incomplete XML sitemaps.
• Agency reporting for sitemap health across client sites.
• Data pipeline checks before submitting sitemap URLs to other SEO tools.
• Developer QA for CMS sitemap generation.

Input

Field	Type	Required	Description
startUrl	string	Yes	Public sitemap XML URL or website URL. If a website URL is provided, the actor checks /sitemap.xml. HTTP and HTTPS only.
staleAfterDays	integer	No	A URL is stale when its lastmod date is older than this many days. Default: 365.
timeoutSeconds	integer	No	Request timeout for the sitemap fetch. Default: 10, range: 3 to 30.
maxBytes	integer	No	Maximum response body size to read. Default: 2000000, maximum: 5000000.

Output

Each run pushes one dataset item.

Field	Type	Description
inputUrl	string	Original input URL.
sitemapUrl	string	Sitemap URL selected for audit.
finalUrl	string	Final fetched URL after redirects.
ok	boolean	True when the sitemap is reachable and scores at least 75.
checkedAt	string	ISO timestamp for the audit.
status	integer	HTTP status code from the sitemap fetch.
contentType	string	Response Content-Type header.
bytes	integer	Number of bytes read.
staleAfterDays	integer	Stale threshold used for the audit.
score	integer	Freshness score from 0 to 100.
grade	string	Letter grade from A to F.
type	string	Parsed sitemap type: urlset or sitemapindex.
urlCount	integer	Number of URL entries parsed.
sitemapIndexCount	integer	Number of child sitemap entries parsed.
lastmodCount	integer	Number of URL entries with lastmod.
lastmodCoveragePercent	integer	Percent of URL entries that include lastmod.
staleUrlCount	integer	Number of URLs older than staleAfterDays.
sampleUrls	array	Up to 20 parsed URL entries with loc, lastmod, hasLastmod, and stale.
sitemapIndexes	array	Up to 50 child sitemap entries from a sitemap index.
issues	array	Human-readable issues found during scoring.
recommendations	array	Recommended fixes.
error	string or null	Fetch or validation error, if any.

Example input

{
  "startUrl": "https://example.com/sitemap.xml",
  "staleAfterDays": 365,
  "timeoutSeconds": 10,
  "maxBytes": 2000000
}

Example output

{
  "inputUrl": "https://example.com/sitemap.xml",
  "sitemapUrl": "https://example.com/sitemap.xml",
  "finalUrl": "https://example.com/sitemap.xml",
  "ok": true,
  "checkedAt": "2026-07-12T00:00:00.000Z",
  "status": 200,
  "contentType": "application/xml",
  "bytes": 12450,
  "staleAfterDays": 365,
  "score": 90,
  "grade": "A",
  "type": "urlset",
  "urlCount": 120,
  "sitemapIndexCount": 0,
  "lastmodCount": 120,
  "lastmodCoveragePercent": 100,
  "staleUrlCount": 2,
  "sampleUrls": [
    {
      "loc": "https://example.com/",
      "lastmod": "2026-07-01",
      "hasLastmod": true,
      "stale": false
    }
  ],
  "sitemapIndexes": [],
  "issues": ["2 URLs have stale lastmod dates"],
  "recommendations": ["Refresh stale content timestamps only when content materially changes."],
  "error": null
}

Security

• Fetches only public HTTP and HTTPS URLs.
• Rejects URL credentials.
• Rejects localhost, private IPv4, private IPv6, link-local, and private DNS resolutions.
• Revalidates redirects before fetching the next URL.
• Reads a bounded response body to avoid oversized sitemap runs.
• Does not require login or collect credentials.

Pricing

Suggested pay-per-event pricing:

Event	Price
Actor start	$0.005
Sitemap audited	$0.01

Typical one-sitemap run cost: about $0.015 before Apify platform charges. Apify keeps its standard commission and the actor owner receives the remainder.

FAQ

Does this crawl every URL in the sitemap?

No. It parses the sitemap XML and audits metadata such as lastmod. It does not fetch every listed page.

Does it expand sitemap indexes?

No. It reports child sitemap entries from a sitemap index. Audit important child sitemap URLs directly when URL-level freshness details are needed.

Can I pass a website URL instead of a sitemap URL?

Yes. If the URL does not look like a sitemap path, the actor checks /sitemap.xml on the same origin.

Why does stale content not always mean a problem?

Some pages are intentionally evergreen. Use staleAfterDays to match your content maintenance policy.

Kill or keep metric

Keep this actor if it gets organic Store impressions, runs, revenue, or inbound SEO agency questions within 60 to 90 days. Improve the listing or pricing if impressions arrive without runs. Archive it if there is no discovery or usage.