Extracted URLs
0 URLs| # | URL | Last Modified | Priority | Change Freq |
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How to use the Sitemap URL Extractor
Sitemaps can contain hundreds of nested entries across multiple files. The extractor flattens any sitemap structure into a clean URL list — useful for site audits, content inventories, and competitor analysis.
Enter the sitemap URL
Either sitemap.xml directly or a sitemap_index.xml. The extractor handles both flat and nested structures.
Review the URL list
Each row shows URL, lastmod date (if present), and any validation warnings (404 status, redirect chain, mismatched protocol).
Export or copy
Copy the flat URL list to clipboard, export as CSV, or pass to other auditing tools. Useful inputs for: broken-link checker, internal-linking tool, content-engagement scorer.
Why sitemap extraction is the foundation of site audits
Most SEO audits start with the question "what URLs does this site have?". The sitemap is the authoritative answer for indexable content. Extracting it gives you the complete inventory in seconds.
Use cases for sitemap extraction
- Content inventory — full list of indexable pages for audits.
- Competitor research — extract competitor sitemaps to see their content footprint.
- Crawl-budget audit — count URLs and compare to Google's reported crawled pages.
- Migration planning — prepare 301 redirect maps from old to new URLs.
- Content cluster analysis — group URLs by directory structure to surface topic areas.
Sitemap structures you'll encounter
- Flat sitemap — single sitemap.xml with all URLs.
- Sitemap index — sitemap_index.xml referencing multiple child sitemaps (post-sitemap.xml, page-sitemap.xml, etc.).
- Specialty sitemaps — image-sitemap.xml, video-sitemap.xml, news-sitemap.xml.
- Compressed sitemaps — sitemap.xml.gz (gzipped for size).
- Robots.txt-referenced sitemaps — Sitemap: directive in robots.txt.
Turning a sitemap into a plain URL list
Most sitemap work ends in the same place: you want the sitemap as a flat list of URLs, one per line, that you can paste into a spreadsheet, a crawler, or a redirect map. Raw XML is the wrong shape for that — every URL sits buried in a <loc> tag alongside <lastmod>, <changefreq>, and <priority> metadata, and a sitemap index adds another layer of nesting on top.
The extractor does that conversion in one step. Point it at a sitemap URL and it walks any child sitemaps, strips the XML scaffolding, and returns the URLs as a plain list you can copy straight to the clipboard or export as CSV. A 50,000-URL sitemap index spread across a dozen child files comes back as one flat column.
Extracting links vs. extracting URLs
These sound identical but mean different things, and mixing them up wastes time.
- Sitemap URLs — the pages a site is explicitly asking Google to index. That is what this tool returns, and it is what you want for content inventories, migration planning, and competitor research.
- On-page links — every anchor found in a page's HTML, including outbound, nofollow, and navigation links. A sitemap does not contain these; you need a crawler or a broken-link checker to see them.
If you are auditing what a site wants indexed, extract the sitemap. If you are auditing how pages actually connect to each other, crawl the pages themselves.
Frequently asked questions
What's the difference between sitemap.xml and sitemap_index.xml?
sitemap.xml is a single file with a list of URLs. sitemap_index.xml is a sitemap of sitemaps — a parent file that references multiple child sitemaps. Used when a single sitemap would exceed the 50,000 URL or 50 MB limit. Most CMSes auto-create the index structure for sites past those limits.
How do I convert a sitemap to a list of URLs?
Paste the sitemap URL above and the extractor returns every <loc> value as a flat, one-per-line list — no XML tags, no metadata columns unless you want them. Child sitemaps referenced by a sitemap index are followed automatically, so you get the complete set in a single pass rather than opening each file by hand. Copy it to the clipboard or export as CSV.
Can I extract all the links from a sitemap?
You can extract every URL a sitemap lists, which is what people usually mean. Worth being precise, though: a sitemap contains only the URLs the site submits for indexing — it does not contain the outbound, internal, or navigation links found inside those pages. To see the links on the pages themselves, extract the sitemap first and then run the resulting list through a crawler or link checker.
Where do I find a site's sitemap?
Three places to check: (1) https://site.com/sitemap.xml (default location); (2) the Sitemap: directive in https://site.com/robots.txt; (3) Google Search Console (for your own sites). If none of these work, the site may use a non-standard URL or not have one.
Can I extract URLs from a competitor's sitemap?
Yes — sitemaps are public by design. Competitor sitemap extraction is a common research technique to audit content footprint, identify topic clusters, and benchmark publishing cadence. Be aware that aggressive automated extraction may trigger rate limits or temporary blocks.
Why are some URLs missing from the sitemap?
Sitemaps typically only include canonical, indexable URLs. Pages with noindex tags, blocked URLs, faceted-nav variants, or internal search results are deliberately excluded. If important pages are missing, it's usually intentional — but worth verifying the publishing logic isn't accidentally filtering them out.
How often are sitemaps updated?
Most CMSes auto-update on every content change. Static-site builders rebuild the sitemap on every deploy. The lastmod date inside each <url> entry shows when each specific URL was last modified — Google uses it for crawl prioritization.