[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":173},["ShallowReactive",2],{"seo-features/sitemap-monitoring":3},{"slug":4,"kind":5,"archetype":6,"cluster":7,"navGroup":7,"navLabel":8,"meta":9,"breadcrumbs":14,"hero":22,"sections":59},"features/sitemap-monitoring","spoke","capability","monitoring","Sitemap Monitoring",{"title":10,"description":11,"canonicalPath":12,"twitterCard":13},"Sitemap Monitoring & Broken URL Detection","Your sitemap lists 200 pages; eleven now 404. Sitewatch audits sitemap URLs weekly and flags broken entries that waste crawl budget and erode SEO.","/features/sitemap-monitoring","summary_large_image",[15,18,21],{"label":16,"href":17},"Home","/",{"label":19,"href":20},"Features","/features",{"label":8,"href":12},{"eyebrow":8,"headline":23,"intentStatement":24,"bullets":25,"primaryCta":35,"secondaryCta":38,"proofPanel":40},"A sitemap full of 404s rots your SEO silently. We audit it weekly.","Your client's sitemap lists 200 pages. Eleven of them now 404. Google keeps crawling the dead links, wastes crawl budget on them, and quietly loses trust in the site. No uptime tool surfaces this. Sitewatch crawls the URLs in your sitemap and flags the broken ones.",[26,29,32],{"icon":27,"text":28},"heroicons:map","Crawls the URLs listed in your sitemap.xml",{"icon":30,"text":31},"heroicons:calendar-days","Runs weekly (sampled for large sitemaps)",{"icon":33,"text":34},"heroicons:exclamation-triangle","Flags entries that return broken responses",{"label":36,"href":37},"Audit your sitemap free","/scan",{"label":39,"href":20},"Back to features",{"type":41,"incidentTitle":42,"severity":43,"affectedLabel":44,"detectedLabel":45,"eventLines":46},"incident","Broken sitemap URLs detected","warning","Affected entries","Weekly sitemap audit",[47,50,52,55],{"icon":33,"text":48,"time":49,"type":41},"/products/old-sku — 404 Not Found","this week",{"icon":33,"text":51,"time":49,"type":41},"/blog/2019-promo — 404 Not Found",{"icon":53,"text":54,"time":49,"type":43},"heroicons:arrow-path","11 of 200 sitemap URLs broken",{"icon":56,"text":57,"time":49,"type":58},"heroicons:check-circle","189 sitemap URLs healthy","ok",[60,88,102,123,130,148],{"id":61,"tocLabel":62,"type":63,"eyebrow":64,"heading":65,"items":66},"benefits","Why it matters","benefits-grid","The \"up but rotting\" problem","Dead URLs in your sitemap waste crawl budget and erode trust",[67,70,73,76,80,84],{"icon":27,"title":68,"description":69},"Audits your own sitemap.xml","Sitewatch reads the URLs you tell search engines to crawl — the ones in your sitemap.xml — and checks that each still returns a healthy response.",{"icon":30,"title":71,"description":72},"Weekly scheduled crawl","Sitemap health runs as a separate weekly fan-out, independent of the per-check cycle. Large sitemaps are sampled so the audit stays efficient.",{"icon":33,"title":74,"description":75},"Broken-entry detection","Any sitemap URL that returns a 404, a server error, or an unexpected redirect is flagged with the exact URL — so you can fix or remove it.",{"icon":77,"title":78,"description":79},"heroicons:banknotes","Stop wasting crawl budget","Every dead URL Google crawls is budget not spent on your real pages. A sitemap full of 404s tells search engines your site is poorly maintained.",{"icon":81,"title":82,"description":83},"heroicons:chart-bar-square","Protect SEO health","A slow, invisible decay — pages removed but never pruned from the sitemap — erodes how search engines value the whole site. This is exactly the kind of silent rot Sitewatch exists to catch.",{"icon":85,"title":86,"description":87},"heroicons:bolt","Sampled in the free scan","A sampled sitemap check is part of the free, no-login public scan as well — a quick read on whether your sitemap is pointing at dead pages.",{"id":89,"tocLabel":90,"type":91,"stats":92},"trust","At a glance","trust-strip",[93,96,99],{"value":94,"label":95},"Weekly","Sitemap URL audit cadence",{"value":97,"label":98},"Sampled","Efficient on large sitemaps",{"value":100,"label":101},"Exact URL","Every broken entry named",{"id":103,"tocLabel":104,"type":105,"eyebrow":106,"heading":107,"groups":108},"detection","What we detect","detection-list-grouped","Sitemap failure modes","How a sitemap quietly works against your SEO",[109,116],{"groupLabel":110,"icon":33,"items":111},"Broken sitemap entries",[112,113,114,115],"URLs that 404 — pages removed but never pruned from the sitemap","URLs returning 5xx server errors","URLs that redirect away from the listed address","Entries left behind after a migration or restructure",{"groupLabel":117,"icon":118,"items":119},"Why it costs you","heroicons:chart-bar",[120,121,122],"Crawl budget spent on dead URLs instead of real pages","Reduced trust signal from a poorly-maintained sitemap","Slow, invisible SEO decay no uptime tool surfaces",{"id":124,"tocLabel":125,"type":126,"heading":127,"subtext":128,"primaryLabel":129,"primaryHref":37},"cta-mid","","cta-strip","Find the dead links in your sitemap","Add a site and Sitewatch audits its sitemap weekly. Free plan, no credit card.","Start monitoring free",{"id":131,"tocLabel":132,"type":133,"eyebrow":132,"heading":134,"items":135},"faq","FAQ","faq-accordion","Frequently asked questions",[136,139,142,145],{"question":137,"answer":138},"How is this different from broken link monitoring?","Broken link monitoring checks the links embedded in your pages' HTML. Sitemap monitoring checks the URLs listed in your sitemap.xml — the addresses you explicitly tell search engines to crawl. A page can have zero broken on-page links while its sitemap still points at dozens of dead URLs.",{"question":140,"answer":141},"How often does the sitemap audit run?","Once a week, as a scheduled fan-out separate from the per-check cycle. For large sites the URLs are sampled so the audit stays fast and efficient rather than crawling thousands of entries every week.",{"question":143,"answer":144},"What counts as a broken sitemap entry?","Any URL in the sitemap that returns a 404, a 5xx server error, or redirects away from the listed address. Each broken entry is reported with its exact URL so you can fix the page or remove it from the sitemap.",{"question":146,"answer":147},"Why does a sitemap full of 404s matter?","Search engines treat your sitemap as a curated list of pages worth crawling. When many of those URLs are dead, you waste crawl budget on nothing and signal that the site is poorly maintained — a slow erosion of SEO health that no uptime monitor will ever show you.",{"id":149,"tocLabel":150,"type":151,"eyebrow":152,"heading":153,"links":154},"related","Related","related-links-grid","Explore more","Related monitoring solutions",[155,160,165,170],{"label":156,"href":157,"description":158,"icon":159},"Broken Link Monitoring","/features/broken-link-monitoring","Catch 404 links embedded in your page content.","heroicons:link-slash",{"label":161,"href":162,"description":163,"icon":164},"Robots.txt Monitoring","/features/robots-txt-monitoring","Catch an accidental Disallow: / the day it ships.","heroicons:no-symbol",{"label":166,"href":167,"description":168,"icon":169},"Website Monitoring","/website-monitoring","Full-page verification beyond uptime checks.","heroicons:shield-check",{"label":171,"href":37,"description":172,"icon":85},"Free Website Health Check","Run a no-login scan — includes a sitemap check.",1780857882950]