Sitemap Analyzer — Page Inventory and Site Architecture Mapping

Purpose

Produce a complete, structured inventory of every page on a site from its sitemap. Used before content planning, internal linking strategy, or SEO audits to understand what the site actually contains vs. what it should contain.

Step 1: Extract Domain and Sitemap Location

From any URL on the target site:

1. Identify root domain: domain.com
2. Check standard sitemap locations in order:
   • domain.com/sitemap.xml
   • domain.com/sitemap_index.xml
   • domain.com/sitemaps/sitemap.xml
   • Check robots.txt for Sitemap: directive if standard locations fail

Step 2: Crawl the Sitemap

If the primary sitemap is a sitemap index (a sitemap of sitemaps):

1. Parse all child sitemap URLs
2. Crawl each child sitemap
3. Extract all URLs across the entire sitemap index

If a single XML sitemap: extract all <loc> entries directly.

For each URL record:

• Full URL
• <lastmod> date if present
• <priority> if present
• <changefreq> if present

Step 3: Build Page Inventory Table

For each URL, determine:

• Page title (from <title> tag or sitemap if included)
• Page type (homepage, service page, location page, blog article, category, product, about, contact, legal, etc.)
• Purpose (one sentence describing what the page does for the business)

Output as a structured table:

| URL | Page Type | Title | Purpose | |-----|-----------|-------|---------| | domain.com/ | Homepage | [title] | [purpose] | | domain.com/services/roofing/ | Service | [title] | [purpose] |

Step 4: Site Structure Summary

After the inventory, provide:

Total pages by type:

• Homepage: 1
• Service pages: X
• Location pages: X
• Blog articles: X
• Other: X

Content siloing assessment:

• Are service pages grouped under /services/ or scattered?
• Do location pages have their own section?
• Is there a clear pillar → supporting page hierarchy?
• Are there orphaned sections with no path from homepage?

Content gap indicators:

• Services mentioned on homepage but no dedicated service page
• Cities/locations served but no location page
• Blog posts with no internal links to/from service pages

Step 5: Architecture Recommendations

Based on inventory:

Silo violations: Pages that belong in a silo but are in the wrong location (e.g., location pages nested under blog/)

Missing pages: Services or locations with no dedicated page

Depth violations: Money pages more than 3 clicks from homepage

URL structure issues: Inconsistent slugs, unnecessary parameters in URLs, overly deep nesting (4+ levels)

Using Sitemap Analysis with LibreCrawl

For large sites or when sitemap is incomplete, supplement with LibreCrawl (D:/ClaudeDev/00_GITHUB/LibreCrawl/):

• Run python main.py --local to start crawler at http://localhost:5000
• LibreCrawl finds pages that may not be in the sitemap (discovered via internal links)
• Cross-reference LibreCrawl output with sitemap output → delta reveals unsubmitted or orphaned pages

Cross-References

• crawl-budget-optimizer — sitemap accuracy is a direct crawl budget input
• internal-linking-optimizer — link depth issues discovered in sitemap analysis
• local-seo-silo-generator — rebuilding silo structure after architecture audit
• duplicate-content-risk-scanner — checking URL patterns for duplication signals

#seo-sop #seo #technical-seo #sitemap #site-architecture #indexing