# Sitemap URL Extractor (`seemuapps/sitemap-extractor`) Actor

Extract every URL from a website's sitemap.xml. Recursively walks nested sitemap indexes and returns loc, lastmod, changefreq, and priority for each page.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/seemuapps/sitemap-extractor.md
- **Developed by:** [Andrew](https://apify.com/seemuapps) (community)
- **Categories:** Agents, Developer tools, Lead generation
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 0 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $0.30 / 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?

Actors are web data automations that power AI and operations. They run on the Apify platform to scrape websites, process data, connect APIs, and automate workflows.
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.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## 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.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
- **JavaScript/TypeScript projects** — the official [JS/TS client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md): `npm install apify-client`.
- **Python projects** — the official [Python client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md): `pip install apify-client`.
- **Any other language** — the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).

# README

## Sitemap URL Extractor

Pull every URL from any website's `sitemap.xml` - automatically walks nested sitemap indexes and returns a clean dataset with `loc`, `lastmod`, `changefreq`, and `priority` for each page.

### What you get

- **URL** (`loc`) for every page listed in the site's sitemap
- **Last modified** date (`lastmod`) - when each page was last updated
- **Change frequency** (`changefreq`) - `always`, `hourly`, `daily`, `weekly`, `monthly`, `yearly`, `never`
- **Priority** (`priority`) - relative importance of each URL (0.0 - 1.0)
- **Source sitemap** - which sitemap file the URL came from (useful when a site splits its sitemap by section)
- **Auto-discovery** - point at a homepage and the actor finds the sitemap via `robots.txt` or `/sitemap.xml`
- **Gzipped sitemap support** - handles `.xml.gz` files transparently
- **Recursive sitemap index walking** - follows nested `<sitemapindex>` files up to 5 levels deep

### Use cases

- **SEO audits** - pull a full URL inventory before running site-wide checks (broken links, missing meta tags, schema validation)
- **Content migration** - build a complete URL list when moving a site between platforms
- **Crawl budget planning** - see how many URLs a site exposes and how recently each was updated
- **Competitor research** - map out every page a competitor publishes
- **Sitemap validation** - verify that your published sitemap actually contains the pages you expect
- **Bulk URL scraping pipelines** - feed the output into another actor for screenshots, content extraction, or AI summarization

### How to use

1. Enter a **Website or Sitemap URL** - either a homepage like `https://www.example.com` (the actor auto-discovers the sitemap) or a direct sitemap URL like `https://www.example.com/sitemap.xml`
2. Set **Max Items** - `0` returns every URL in the entire sitemap tree
3. Choose whether to **Follow Sitemap Index** - on by default, so a single run pulls every URL from every child sitemap
4. Run the actor - results land in the **Dataset** tab
5. Export to JSON, CSV, Excel, or Google Sheets directly from the Apify console

#### Extract every URL on a site

```json
{
  "websiteUrl": "https://www.apify.com/",
  "maxItems": 0,
  "followSitemapIndex": true
}
```

#### Extract only the top-level sitemap

```json
{
  "websiteUrl": "https://www.apify.com/sitemap.xml",
  "maxItems": 0,
  "followSitemapIndex": false
}
```

### Output format

One dataset record per URL:

```json
{
  "loc": "https://www.apify.com/store",
  "lastmod": "2024-08-12",
  "changefreq": "daily",
  "priority": "0.8",
  "sourceSitemap": "https://www.apify.com/sitemap.xml"
}
```

Fields not present in the sitemap entry come back as `null`.

### Parameters

| Field | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
| **Website or Sitemap URL** | `https://www.apify.com` | Homepage URL (auto-discovered) or direct `.xml` / `.xml.gz` sitemap URL |
| **Max Items** | `0` | Maximum URLs to return per run. `0` = unlimited |
| **Follow Sitemap Index** | `true` | Recurse into child sitemaps when the top-level file is a sitemap index |

### Notes

- Sitemap discovery first looks for `Sitemap:` directives in `/robots.txt`, then falls back to `/sitemap.xml`
- Nested sitemap indexes are walked breadth-first; the actor de-duplicates sitemap URLs so circular references are safe
- Recursion is capped at 5 levels deep and 1,000 total sitemaps as a safety net against runaway loops
- Each fetched sitemap has a 30-second timeout - slow or unreachable child sitemaps are logged and skipped, the run continues
- Gzip-compressed sitemaps (`*.xml.gz`) are decompressed automatically

### Related website & SEO actors

Part of a complete website & SEO toolkit - explore the rest of the suite:

- [Website Contact Scraper](https://apify.com/seemuapps/website-contact-scraper) - Emails, phones, and socials from any website
- [Website Email Scraper](https://apify.com/seemuapps/website-email-scraper) - Crawl a site deep and extract all emails
- [Website Tech Stack Detector](https://apify.com/seemuapps/website-tech-stack-detector) - Detect CMS, frameworks, analytics, and DNS/MX
- [SEO Meta Tag Auditor](https://apify.com/seemuapps/seo-meta-auditor) - Audit title, OG, Twitter cards, and schema
- [Domain WHOIS & SSL Inspector](https://apify.com/seemuapps/domain-whois-ssl-inspector) - WHOIS, domain age, and live SSL details

# Actor input Schema

## `websiteUrl` (type: `string`):

Either a homepage URL (e.g. 'https://www.apify.com/' - we'll auto-discover the sitemap via robots.txt or /sitemap.xml) or a direct sitemap URL (e.g. 'https://www.apify.com/sitemap.xml').

## `maxItems` (type: `integer`):

Maximum number of URLs to return. 0 = unlimited (walks the entire sitemap tree).

## `followSitemapIndex` (type: `boolean`):

When the top-level sitemap is a sitemap index (a list of child sitemaps), recurse into each child sitemap. Disable to only extract URLs from the top-level file.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "websiteUrl": "https://www.apify.com/",
  "maxItems": 0,
  "followSitemapIndex": true
}
```

# Actor output Schema

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

Each record: { loc, lastmod, changefreq, priority, sourceSitemap }

# 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 = {
    "websiteUrl": "https://www.apify.com/",
    "maxItems": 0
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("seemuapps/sitemap-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 = {
    "websiteUrl": "https://www.apify.com/",
    "maxItems": 0,
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("seemuapps/sitemap-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 '{
  "websiteUrl": "https://www.apify.com/",
  "maxItems": 0
}' |
apify call seemuapps/sitemap-extractor --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,seemuapps/sitemap-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/W2GdEogeMZxwS1v2G/builds/fisXOhuRi4f0pGXlL/openapi.json