--- title: Sitemap Monitoring for XML & Links description: Sitemap monitoring by WatchFor. We find your sitemap.xml, check that it loads, then request a sample of the URLs it lists to catch 404s, 500s and removed pages before search engines do. Free plan available. canonical: https://watchfor.io/sitemap-monitoring --- # Sitemap Monitoring for SEO & Index Coverage Catch broken links, removed pages and sitemap errors before search engines do. WatchFor checks that your sitemap.xml loads, then requests a sample of the URLs it lists. [Get started for free](/auth/sign-up)[View pricing](/pricing) ## Sitemap Monitoring Features What each check looks at in your sitemap and its pages ### Sitemap Reachability We fetch your sitemap on every check and confirm it loads and contains a urlset or sitemap index. Give your site's address and we look in /sitemap.xml, /sitemap_index.xml, /sitemap/sitemap.xml and robots.txt. ### URL Count Each check counts the URLs the sitemap lists, and the Minimum URL Count rule alerts when a deploy suddenly empties or shrinks it. ### URL Sampling Each check requests the first 50 URLs in the sitemap (you can lower the number), follows redirects and counts how many answer with an error. ### Broken Link Detection Catch 404s, 500s and unreachable pages among the URLs you tell search engines to index. Turn on Capture broken URLs to see exactly which ones failed. ### Rules On by Default Sitemap Available and Broken URL Ratio (more than 20 % broken) are on from the start. Broken URL Count and Minimum URL Count are there when you want them. ### Confirmed From Several Locations Checks run from the regions you choose, and failures are confirmed from several locations before an incident opens, so one bad network path doesn't page you. ### History of Every Check Each check records the URLs found, the URLs sampled and how many were broken, so you can see when a problem started. ### Flexible Scheduling The Free plan includes 3 sitemap monitors checked hourly; paid plans check as often as every 30 minutes. Maintenance windows keep planned deploys quiet. ## A closer look Alert on broken sampled URLs or when the sitemap suddenly shrinks. Each check records the URLs found, the URLs sampled and broken links. ## Why Choose Our Sitemap Monitoring Solution? Your XML sitemap is how search engines discover your pages, so a broken sitemap or dead URLs quietly erode your rankings and traffic. Our monitor finds your sitemap, checks that it loads and requests a sample of the URLs it lists on a schedule, confirming failures from several locations before alerting you. For a sitemap index, it checks that each child sitemap responds; add a monitor for each child sitemap to sample the pages inside it. [Start monitoring now](/auth/sign-up) Find your sitemap automatically, including from robots.txt Confirm it loads and count the URLs it lists Sample up to 50 listed URLs on every check Detect 404s, 500s and unreachable pages Alert when the sitemap suddenly shrinks Failures confirmed from several locations 3 sitemap monitors on the Free plan Alerts on any of 16 channels, including email, Slack and PagerDuty ## How Sitemap Monitoring Works From sitemap to alert in four steps 1 ### Add Your Sitemap Enter the sitemap URL, or your site's address and let the monitor find it. Choose how often to check and from which regions. 2 ### Set Expectations Choose how many URLs to sample, the broken share or count that should alert, a minimum URL count, and how many failed checks confirm a problem. 3 ### Monitor 24/7 We fetch your sitemap and request the sampled URLs on every check, recording which ones answer with an error. 4 ### Get Alerts When the sitemap goes missing or too many sampled URLs fail, you're notified on your channels, with the broken URLs listed when capture is on. ## Sitemap Monitoring Use Cases For any site that depends on search traffic ### SEO & Index Coverage Keep the pages you submit to search engines healthy and indexable. Catch dead URLs and sitemap errors before they shrink your index coverage and cost you rankings. ### Content & Publishing Sites Blogs, news sites and documentation portals add and remove pages constantly. Point a monitor at a section's own sitemap, such as your blog's, so its pages are the ones sampled and a removed post that's still listed shows up as broken. ### E-commerce Catalogs Product and category pages come and go as inventory changes. A monitor on your product sitemap catches listed product URLs that start returning 404, protecting organic traffic to your store. ### Post-Deploy Verification Migrations, redesigns and CMS upgrades can quietly break URLs and sitemaps. Regular checks catch the regression soon after a deploy, long before search engines re-crawl your site. ## Frequently asked questions Everything you need to know about sitemap monitoring [All questions→](/faq)[Ask us directly](/contact) What is sitemap monitoring? Sitemap monitoring fetches your sitemap on a schedule, confirms it's there and is a real XML sitemap, and then requests a sample of the URLs it lists to make sure they still load. It keeps the map you give search engines honest: every page you ask them to index should actually work. How does sitemap monitoring work? Why does a broken sitemap hurt my SEO? Does it check the individual URLs inside the sitemap? How often is my sitemap checked? What happens when a problem is detected? Can it handle large sitemaps and sitemap index files? Will it notice if my sitemap suddenly shrinks? Do I need a publicly accessible sitemap? ## From our blog Guides, deep-dives, and best practices from the WatchFor team [Networking ### 404 Not Found: what it means and how to handle it Mar 12, 2026·3 min readRead article](/blog/404-not-found)[Networking ### 301 vs 302 Redirects: which one should you use? Mar 04, 2026·3 min readRead article](/blog/301-vs-302-redirects)[Performance ### ERR_TOO_MANY_REDIRECTS: causes and how to fix it Feb 28, 2026·3 min readRead article](/blog/too-many-redirects) ## Ready to Keep Your Sitemap & Links SEO-Healthy? Sitemap monitors are on every plan, including Free with 3 monitors checked hourly. Get started in minutes — no credit card required. [Get started for free](/auth/sign-up)[View documentation](/docs/monitors/performance#sitemap) --- Canonical page: https://watchfor.io/sitemap-monitoring · Site guide: https://watchfor.io/llms.txt