# Sitemap URL Extractor: All Site URLs, Lastmod & News (`private_image_hg9/sitemap-url-extractor`) Actor

Get every page URL a website lists in its XML sitemaps, with lastmod, changefreq, priority and image, news and video details. Finds sitemaps from robots.txt and the usual locations, follows sitemap indexes, reads gzip, text sitemaps and RSS/Atom feeds. Pay per URL.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/private_image_hg9/sitemap-url-extractor.md
- **Developed by:** [Michael Shanker](https://apify.com/private_image_hg9) (community)
- **Categories:** SEO tools, Developer tools
- **Security:** Limited permissions
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

$0.50 / 1,000 url extracteds

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 URL Extractor: All Site URLs, Lastmod & News

Give it a list of websites (or sitemap addresses) and get back **every page URL the site lists in its XML sitemaps**, one row per URL, with the details the sitemap gives: **last modified date, change frequency, priority**, and **image, news and video** information when the sitemap has it.

It's the fast way to get a full list of a site's pages for an SEO audit, a content inventory, a migration checklist, a crawl seed list, change monitoring, or feeding pages into another scraper, without crawling the site page by page.

**You pay per URL saved: $0.50 per 1,000 URLs.** Websites with no sitemap, blocked by robots.txt or unreachable still get one free row saying why.

### What it does

- **Finds the sitemaps for you.** It reads the `Sitemap:` lines in the site's robots.txt first. If those give nothing readable, it tries `/sitemap.xml`, `/sitemap_index.xml`, `/sitemap-index.xml` and `/wp-sitemap.xml`, in that order, and stops at the first real sitemap. Or give it a sitemap address directly, like `https://example.com/sitemap_news.xml`.
- **Follows sitemap indexes** down to 4 levels, reading child sitemaps in the order the index lists them.
- **Reads what sites actually publish:** XML sitemaps, sitemap indexes, gzip-compressed `.xml.gz` files, gzip or deflate transfer compression, plain-text sitemaps (one URL per line), and RSS or Atom feeds listed as sitemaps.
- **Extension data when present:** image count and image URLs (`image:image`), Google News title, publication date, publication name and language (`news:news`), and video count, title and thumbnail (`video:video`).
- **Filters before you pay:** keep only URLs containing some text (`/blog/`) or matching a regular expression, drop others, or keep only URLs changed after a date. Filtered-out URLs are not charged.
- **Copes with messy sitemaps:** URLs with unescaped `&`, stray whitespace, BOMs, XSL stylesheets, cut-off files (URLs before the break are kept, the half URL is dropped) and HTML "soft 404" pages served as `/sitemap.xml` (recognized and skipped).
- **Repeats removed:** a URL listed in two sitemaps of the same site is saved once.

### Compared with crawling the site

| | This tool | Crawling the site's pages to collect URLs |
|---|---|---|
| What is downloaded | Only robots.txt and the sitemap files | Every page of the site |
| Requests for a 10,000-page site | Usually 2 to 10 | About 10,000 |
| Last modified, priority, news and image data | Yes, as the site declares them | Not usually available |
| Pages the site doesn't link to | Included if the sitemap lists them | Missed |
| Pages missing from the sitemap | Missed | Found if linked |
| Page content (titles, text) | No (feeds give a title) | Yes |

If you need what's on each page, use a crawler. If you need the list of pages, the sitemap is the site's own answer and much cheaper to read.

### Input

| Field | What it does |
|---|---|
| **Websites or sitemap addresses** | One per line: `example.com`, `https://www.example.co.uk/`, or a sitemap or feed address like `https://example.com/sitemap_index.xml`. A bare domain tries https, then https://www., then http. |
| **Max URLs per website** | Reading stops once this many URLs of a site are saved (default 10,000, max 1,000,000). |
| **Only URLs containing** | Keep URLs containing any of these texts (case-insensitive). Start an entry with `re:` for a regular expression, e.g. `re:/20(25\|26)/`. |
| **Leave out URLs containing** | Drop URLs containing any of these. `re:` works here too. |
| **Changed on or after** | Keep URLs whose `lastmod` (or feed date) is on or after a date (`2026-01-31`) or a relative time (`30 days`). URLs without a date are left out, and child sitemaps the index says last changed before the date are skipped without downloading them. |
| **Max sitemap files per website** | Most sitemap files read per site, indexes included (default 200). |
| **Websites at once** | Parallel websites (default 5). Each website still gets at most one request per second. |

Example input:

```json
{
  "startUrls": ["nodejs.org", "allbirds.com", "https://www.theguardian.com/sitemaps/news.xml"],
  "maxUrlsPerSite": 5000,
  "includeFilter": ["/products/", "re:/20(25|26)/"],
  "excludeFilter": ["?page="],
  "lastmodAfter": "90 days"
}
```

### Output

One row per URL (values illustrative):

```json
{
  "url": "https://www.example-news.com/2026/11/election-night/",
  "lastmod": "2026-11-02T06:00:00+00:00",
  "changefreq": "hourly",
  "priority": 0.8,
  "imageCount": 2,
  "imageUrls": ["https://www.example-news.com/img/results.jpg", "https://www.example-news.com/img/crowd.jpg"],
  "newsTitle": "Election night: results as they come in",
  "newsPublicationDate": "2026-11-02T05:30:00+00:00",
  "newsPublicationName": "Example News",
  "newsLanguage": "en",
  "sitemapUrl": "https://www.example-news.com/news-sitemap.xml",
  "sitemapType": "urlset",
  "site": "example-news.com"
}
```

- `lastmod` is normalized to ISO 8601 (`2026-11-02T06:00:00+00:00`, or `2026-11-02` for a date only, keeping the site's own time zone). A date the tool can't read is kept as the site wrote it. `null` when the sitemap gives none.
- `changefreq` and `priority` are `null` when missing; a priority outside 0.0 to 1.0 is dropped.
- `imageCount`/`imageUrls` (first 10), `newsTitle`/`newsPublicationDate`/`newsPublicationName`/`newsLanguage` and `videoCount`/`videoTitle`/`videoThumbnailUrl` appear only when the sitemap has them. Feed rows have a `title`.
- `sitemapType` is `urlset` (XML sitemap), `text`, `rss` or `atom`.

A website where no URL could be read gets **one free row** with `url: null`, a `status` and an `error` saying why:

- `no_sitemap_found`: robots.txt lists no readable sitemap and none of the usual locations has one.
- `blocked_by_robots`: the site's robots.txt asks tools like this one not to read its sitemaps (or answered with a server error, which per the standard means stay away).
- `unreachable`: the site didn't answer.
- `no_urls`: sitemaps were read, but they list no URLs, or none passed your filters.
- `invalid_url`: the input isn't a usable public web address.

The run also saves a `SUMMARY` record: totals, the list of sites without a sitemap, and for each site the sitemap files read (with any problem per file), URLs listed, saved, filtered and repeated, and whether the URL cap, time limit or spending cap was reached.

Download results as JSON, CSV or Excel, or send them to Google Sheets, Zapier, Make or n8n.

### Pricing

Pay per event: **$0.0005 per URL row ($0.50 per 1,000 URLs)**. No start fee and no charge per sitemap file, so a site with 100 small sitemaps costs the same per URL as a site with one big one. Rows for sites without URLs are free, and URLs your filters drop are never charged.

Set a maximum charge per run in the run options: rows are saved and charged in batches, and the run stops exactly at the limit (a batch is cut to what's left) and says so in the log and the `SUMMARY`.

### Good to know

- **Sitemaps show what the site chooses to list.** Some sites list only part of their pages, some list pages that no longer exist, and `lastmod` dates are only as accurate as the site keeps them.
- **Limits per website:** 4 levels of sitemap indexes, 200 sitemap files by default (up to 5,000), 100 MB read from one file (the sitemap standard's own limit is 50 MB), 500 MB per website in total, and 20 minutes per website. A file cut at a limit still gives the URLs read before it, and the `SUMMARY` says which file was cut.
- **Order:** URLs come in the order the sitemaps list them, so with a URL cap you get the first sitemaps first. Use `lastmodAfter` to get recent pages from big archives.
- **URLs on other hosts** are kept as listed (some sites list a `blog.` or `shop.` subdomain in the main sitemap); filter them with **Leave out URLs containing** if you don't want them.

### Responsible use

- It reads only **public sitemap files** that websites publish for search engines and crawlers. It never logs in and never downloads the pages themselves.
- It **respects robots.txt** for every file it reads, waits at least a second between requests to the same website (longer if robots.txt asks for a crawl delay), retries politely on `429` and server errors, and names itself in its User-Agent (`SitemapUrlExtractorBot`).
- It refuses local and private network addresses (localhost, private IP ranges, `.internal` names and domains that resolve to them).
- Sitemap files are parsed as a stream with safety limits: XML entity declarations (the "billion laughs" trick) are refused, compressed files are inflated in small steps with a size cap, and nothing in a file can make the tool fetch anything outside the sitemap tree.

This Actor isn't affiliated with or endorsed by any of the websites it reads.

### More tools from the same developer

- [Broken Link Checker: 404s, Redirects & Dead Links](https://apify.com/private_image_hg9/broken-link-checker)
- [SEO Audit Tool: On-Page Checks, Crawl & Broken Links](https://apify.com/private_image_hg9/seo-audit-onpage)
- [Bulk URL Status Checker: Redirect Chain & Response Time](https://apify.com/private_image_hg9/bulk-url-status-redirect-checker)
- [Wayback Machine Scraper: Snapshots, Changes & Page Text](https://apify.com/private_image_hg9/wayback-machine-snapshots)
- [Website Screenshot & PDF: Full Page, Mobile, Batch URLs](https://apify.com/private_image_hg9/website-screenshot-pdf)
- [Domain WHOIS, DNS & SSL Checker: Expiry, SPF & DMARC](https://apify.com/private_image_hg9/domain-whois-dns-ssl-checker)

# Actor input Schema

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

One per line. A domain like example.com (its sitemaps are found from robots.txt, then /sitemap.xml, /sitemap_index.xml, /sitemap-index.xml and /wp-sitemap.xml), or the address of one sitemap or feed to read directly, like https://example.com/sitemap_news.xml. Repeats are read once.

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

Reading stops once this many URLs of one website were saved (after filters). Each saved URL is one charged row.

## `includeFilter` (type: `array`):

Keep only URLs that contain at least one of these (case-insensitive), e.g. /blog/. Start an entry with re: to use a regular expression, e.g. re:/20(25|26)/. Leave empty to keep all.

## `excludeFilter` (type: `array`):

Drop URLs that contain any of these (case-insensitive), e.g. /tag/ or ?page=. re: works here too. Dropped URLs are not charged.

## `lastmodAfter` (type: `string`):

Keep only URLs whose lastmod (or feed date) is on or after this date, like 2026-01-31, or a relative time like 30 days. URLs without a date are left out when this is set, and child sitemaps the index says last changed before it are skipped without being downloaded.

## `maxSitemapsPerSite` (type: `integer`):

Most sitemap files (indexes included) downloaded for one website. Big news sites can have thousands.

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

How many websites are read in parallel. Each website still gets at most one request per second.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "startUrls": [
    "apify.com",
    "https://blog.apify.com/sitemap.xml"
  ],
  "maxUrlsPerSite": 500,
  "maxSitemapsPerSite": 200,
  "maxConcurrency": 5
}
```

# Actor output Schema

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

One row per URL listed in the sitemaps, plus one free row for each website where no URL could be read, saying why.

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

Counts for the run and per website: sitemap files read, URLs saved and charged, what was filtered, and whether the spending cap was reached.

# 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": [
        "apify.com",
        "https://blog.apify.com/sitemap.xml"
    ],
    "maxUrlsPerSite": 500
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("private_image_hg9/sitemap-url-extractor").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": [
        "apify.com",
        "https://blog.apify.com/sitemap.xml",
    ],
    "maxUrlsPerSite": 500,
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("private_image_hg9/sitemap-url-extractor").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": [
    "apify.com",
    "https://blog.apify.com/sitemap.xml"
  ],
  "maxUrlsPerSite": 500
}' |
apify call private_image_hg9/sitemap-url-extractor --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,private_image_hg9/sitemap-url-extractor"
        }
    }
}
```

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/Bg54KJl3lmjsg5IXc/builds/YNv6dHnhzaECHU4O9/openapi.json