To list pages declared by a site’s robots.txt, fetch the site’s top-level /robots.txt, collect every case-insensitive Sitemap: record, then recursively read each sitemap index until you reach URL sets and their <loc> entries. The resulting inventory is a record of URLs declared through sitemaps—not proof that a site’s every page is live, unique, crawlable, canonical, or indexed.
What “every page” means in this workflow
robots.txt does not normally enumerate web pages. It is a Robots Exclusion Protocol file for crawler access requests. Sitemap records are an additional discovery mechanism. RFC 9309 specifies that robots.txt is served at the host’s top-level /robots.txt path, uses UTF-8, and should be delivered as text/plain. Google’s guidance allows multiple Sitemap: fields, requires each value to be an absolute URL, and does not tie the field to a particular User-agent group. A sitemap URL can point to another host.
A useful extractor therefore reports a sitemap-declared URL inventory. It should retain where every URL came from and distinguish successful retrievals from parser and network failures.
Important limits
- A sitemap helps search engines discover URLs but does not guarantee that all listed items will be crawled or indexed.
- A URL blocked by robots.txt can still be indexed if other pages link to it.
- Sitemaps can be stale, contain duplicate locations, omit pages, or list URLs that now return errors.
- “Every page” means every URL exposed by the discovered sitemap files, not every route that exists in an application or database.
Extraction pipeline
- Build the origin URL and request
https://example.com/robots.txt(or the site’s supported HTTPS/HTTP protocol). - Decode the response as UTF-8, preserving comments and recording the HTTP status and content type.
- Read every
Sitemap:line. Trim surrounding whitespace, compare the field name case-insensitively, and validate that the value is an absolute URL. - Fetch each sitemap. Decompress gzip content when the URL or response indicates compression.
- If the XML root is a sitemap index, enqueue each child sitemap and continue recursively. If it is a URL set, emit each
<loc>. - Track visited sitemap URLs to prevent cycles, apply a configurable nesting limit, and de-duplicate exact repeated page URLs.
- Export URLs plus provenance: robots.txt URL, sitemap URL, retrieval time, HTTP status, and parser result or error.
Complete Python extractor
The following script uses only Python’s standard library. It follows redirects, accepts compressed responses, handles XML namespaces, records failures, and writes both a URL list and an audit log. It deliberately preserves the exact text of each <loc> value; normalization is left to a later, explicit policy.
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#!/usr/bin/env python3
import argparse, gzip, json, sys
from collections import deque
from datetime import datetime, timezone
from urllib.parse import urljoin, urlparse
from urllib.request import Request, urlopen
import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET
UA = "SitemapInventory/1.0"
def now():
return datetime.now(timezone.utc).isoformat()
def get(url, timeout):
req = Request(url, headers={"User-Agent": UA, "Accept-Encoding": "gzip"})
with urlopen(req, timeout=timeout) as r:
data = r.read()
if r.headers.get("Content-Encoding", "").lower() == "gzip":
data = gzip.decompress(data)
return data, r.status, r.headers.get("Content-Type", "")
def absolute(value):
p = urlparse(value)
return value if p.scheme in ("http", "https") and p.netloc else None
def robots_sitemaps(text):
found = []
for raw in text.splitlines():
line = raw.split("#", 1)[0].strip()
if ":" not in line:
continue
name, value = line.split(":", 1)
if name.strip().lower() != "sitemap":
continue
candidate = absolute(value.strip())
if candidate and candidate not in found:
found.append(candidate)
return found
def local(root):
return root.tag.rsplit("}", 1)[-1].lower()
def children(root, name):
for node in root.iter():
if node.tag.rsplit("}", 1)[-1].lower() == name:
if node.text and node.text.strip():
yield node.text.strip()
def main():
ap = argparse.ArgumentParser()
ap.add_argument("site", help="https://example.com")
ap.add_argument("--timeout", type=float, default=30)
ap.add_argument("--max-depth", type=int, default=20)
ap.add_argument("--out", default="sitemap-inventory.json")
args = ap.parse_args()
origin = args.site.rstrip("/")
robots_url = origin + "/robots.txt"
audit, errors, pages, seen_pages, seen_maps = [], [], [], set(), set()
try:
raw, status, content_type = get(robots_url, args.timeout)
text = raw.decode("utf-8-sig")
maps = robots_sitemaps(text)
audit.append({"kind":"robots", "url":robots_url, "retrieved_at":now(), "status":status, "content_type":content_type})
except Exception as e:
print(f"robots.txt failed: {e}", file=sys.stderr); return 2
queue = deque((u, 0) for u in maps)
while queue:
sitemap_url, depth = queue.popleft()
if sitemap_url in seen_maps: continue
seen_maps.add(sitemap_url)
record = {"kind":"sitemap", "url":sitemap_url, "retrieved_at":now(), "depth":depth}
try:
raw, status, content_type = get(sitemap_url, args.timeout)
record.update(status=status, content_type=content_type, parser_result="ok")
root = ET.fromstring(raw)
kind = local(root)
if kind == "sitemapindex":
for child in children(root, "loc"):
child_url = absolute(child)
if child_url and depth + 1 <= args.max_depth:
queue.append((child_url, depth + 1))
elif not child_url:
errors.append({"url":sitemap_url, "error":"non-absolute child loc", "value":child})
elif kind == "urlset":
for value in children(root, "loc"):
if value not in seen_pages:
seen_pages.add(value); pages.append(value)
else:
record["parser_result"] = "unknown_root"
errors.append({"url":sitemap_url, "error":"XML root is not sitemapindex or urlset"})
except Exception as e:
record.update(parser_result="error", error=str(e))
errors.append({"url":sitemap_url, "error":str(e)})
audit.append(record)
output = {"robots_txt":robots_url, "retrieved_at":now(), "sitemaps":audit,
"urls":pages, "errors":errors}
with open(args.out, "w", encoding="utf-8") as f:
json.dump(output, f, ensure_ascii=False, indent=2)
print(f"Wrote {len(pages)} URLs to {args.out}; {len(errors)} errors")
if __name__ == "__main__": main()Run it
python3 sitemap_inventory.py https://example.com --out example-inventory.jsonThe JSON file’s sitemaps array shows each fetch and parser result; urls contains exact, de-duplicated locations; errors keeps failures instead of silently dropping them. A nonzero exit code means robots.txt itself could not be retrieved.
Handling robots.txt correctly
Protocol and redirects
Start at the site’s origin and request the top-level path, not /sitemap.xml guessed from convention. Follow HTTP redirects but retain the original robots.txt URL in your audit. If a site is available only over HTTP, use that supported protocol and record it.
Comments, case, and malformed lines
Comments can follow a record and should not become part of the URL. Field-name matching is commonly made case-insensitive, while the URL value should be trimmed but otherwise preserved. Ignore unrelated directives such as User-agent, Allow, and Disallow when collecting sitemap records; a Sitemap record is independent of those groups.
Absolute and cross-host locations
Reject relative sitemap values because the documented Sitemap field requires absolute URLs. Do not restrict accepted hosts to the robots.txt host: a sitemap may be hosted elsewhere. Apply your own security policy before fetching untrusted cross-host URLs.
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Traversing sitemap XML
Sitemap indexes
An index contains child sitemap locations. Use a queue or recursion, maintain a visited set, and impose a depth limit. The visited set protects against cycles and duplicate references. Preserve each child’s parent in your audit if you need a full lineage report.
URL sets
A URL set contains one or more <url> elements, each with a <loc>. XML namespaces are normal, so match the local element name rather than assuming one namespace URI. Emit the location exactly as supplied unless your specification explicitly permits canonicalization.
Compression and XML failures
Some sitemap files are gzip-compressed. Handle the HTTP Content-Encoding header and, if your implementation supports it, a .gz URL. Treat malformed XML, an unexpected root element, invalid UTF-8, and decompression failures as auditable errors. Continuing with other sitemap files is usually more useful than aborting the entire inventory.
Output design and quality checks
| Field | Recommended value | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| robots_txt_url | Original top-level URL | Identifies the discovery source. |
| sitemap_url | Every fetched sitemap or index | Supports reproducibility and troubleshooting. |
| retrieved_at | UTC timestamp per request | Shows when the inventory was observed. |
| http_status | Response status | Separates successful and failed fetches. |
| parser_result | urlset, sitemapindex, unknown_root, or error | Makes parser behavior inspectable. |
| loc | Exact XML text | Avoids silently changing publisher data. |
Checks after extraction
- Count sitemap records and compare them with the number fetched.
- Look for duplicate sitemap URLs and duplicate page locations.
- Optionally issue separate HTTP checks to classify pages as live, redirected, missing, or blocked; do not confuse those results with sitemap extraction.
- Flag non-HTTP(S) locations, malformed URLs, and unexpected hosts for review.
- Keep the raw robots.txt and sitemap responses when you need an audit trail, subject to the site’s terms and your retention policy.
Performance, reliability, and safety
Control concurrency
Large indexes can reference many files. A bounded worker pool can reduce elapsed time, but use conservative concurrency, per-request timeouts, retries with backoff, and a clear maximum depth. Caching responses during one run prevents repeated downloads when the same sitemap is referenced more than once.
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Separate transient and permanent errors
Retry timeouts and temporary server errors a limited number of times. Do not endlessly retry authentication failures, malformed XML, or consistently unsupported content. Record the final status and error text.
Protect the extractor
Cross-host sitemap URLs and redirects mean the extractor may contact servers outside the original site. Restrict schemes to HTTP and HTTPS, enforce response-size limits, reject dangerous private-network destinations where appropriate, and avoid expanding entities or external XML references. These controls matter when URLs come from untrusted input.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Troubleshooting
robots.txt returns 404
There may be no declared sitemap. Confirm the origin, protocol, redirect chain, and exact top-level path. Do not silently substitute a guessed sitemap URL unless your product specification says to do so.
No Sitemap records are found
Check comments, whitespace, capitalization, and whether the response is actually a robots.txt file. A site can publish a sitemap without advertising it in robots.txt; discovering that requires a separate, explicitly documented strategy.
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XML parses but yields zero URLs
You may have fetched a sitemap index and failed to enqueue its children, encountered namespaces your parser does not handle, or received an empty/stale file. Inspect the root element and raw response.
One child sitemap fails
Keep the successful files, record the failed URL, status, and parser error, and retry transient failures. The final inventory should state that it is partial.
Duplicate URLs appear
Exact de-duplication is safe for a basic inventory. Do not collapse case variants, fragments, encoded forms, or redirects unless you define a canonicalization policy and report it separately.
Requests time out or are blocked
Increase the timeout modestly, honor redirects, identify your client, and reduce concurrency. A bot check or access denial is a retrieval failure—not evidence that the sitemap has no URLs.
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open("shot.webp", "wb").write(r.content)Node.js:
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Frequently Asked Questions
Can robots.txt list every URL on a website?
No. It can advertise sitemap files, and those files can enumerate declared locations, but pages may be omitted, stale, duplicated, or inaccessible.
Is a sitemap index different from a sitemap URL set?
Yes. An index points to child sitemap files; a URL set contains page locations. An extractor must distinguish the XML root and recurse through indexes.
Should I obey Disallow while extracting sitemap URLs?
Keep robots directives in your audit, but do not confuse access rules with the Sitemap field. Whether your own crawler may fetch listed pages is a separate policy decision.
Why preserve provenance for each URL?
It lets you identify the sitemap, retrieval time, response status, and parser result that produced an entry, which is essential when inventories change or files fail.
Quick Recap
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