# Robots.txt & Sitemap Auditor (`phoenix2810/robots-sitemap-auditor`) Actor

Audit a website's robots.txt directives and sitemap discovery in one fast API call. Detect blocked paths, missing sitemaps, and crawlability issues. Built for SEO agencies, technical SEO consultants, and site migration QA teams.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/phoenix2810/robots-sitemap-auditor.md
- **Developed by:** [Sanskar Jaiswal](https://apify.com/phoenix2810) (community)
- **Categories:** SEO tools, Developer tools, Open source
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $0.005 / actor start

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/platform/actors/running/actors-in-store#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are web data automations that power AI and operations. They run on the Apify platform to scrape websites, process data, connect APIs, and automate workflows.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
- **JavaScript/TypeScript projects** — the official [JS/TS client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md): `npm install apify-client`.
- **Python projects** — the official [Python client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md): `pip install apify-client`.
- **Any other language** — the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).

# README

## Robots.txt & Sitemap Auditor

Audit a website's robots.txt directives and sitemap discovery in a single API call. Detects blocked paths, missing sitemaps, sitewide disallow rules, and crawlability issues. Returns structured findings with severity levels.

### Use cases

- **SEO agencies** - run crawlability audits across client sites
- **Technical SEO** - identify robots.txt misconfigurations and missing sitemaps
- **Site migration QA** - verify robots.txt and sitemap health before and after migrations
- **Dev shops** - automated crawlability checks in deployment pipelines
- **Website monitoring** - continuous robots.txt and sitemap monitoring

### Input

| Field | Type | Required | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| `startUrl` | string | yes | - | Public website URL to audit |
| `timeoutSeconds` | integer | no | `10` | Per-request timeout (3-30 seconds) |

#### Example input

```json
{
  "startUrl": "https://example.com",
  "timeoutSeconds": 10
}
```

### Output

A single dataset item with the full audit:

| Field | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| `inputUrl` | string | The URL provided |
| `normalizedUrl` | string | Normalized site origin |
| `checkedAt` | string | ISO timestamp |
| `robots` | object | Robots.txt analysis (see below) |
| `sitemaps` | array | Sitemap probe results (see below) |
| `findings` | array | Severity-tagged findings with codes and messages |

#### `robots` object

| Field | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| `url` | string | URL where robots.txt was fetched |
| `ok` | boolean | Whether the fetch succeeded |
| `status` | integer | HTTP status code |
| `finalUrl` | string | Final URL after redirects |
| `contentType` | string | HTTP content-type |
| `sitemapDirectives` | array | Sitemap URLs declared in robots.txt |
| `disallowCount` | integer | Number of disallow rules |
| `allowCount` | integer | Number of allow rules |
| `crawlDelay` | array | Crawl-delay values found |
| `error` | string | Error message if fetch failed |

#### `sitemaps` array

Each entry contains:

| Field | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| `url` | string | Sitemap URL probed |
| `ok` | boolean | Whether the fetch succeeded |
| `status` | integer | HTTP status code |
| `contentType` | string | HTTP content-type |
| `finalUrl` | string | Final URL after redirects |
| `bytesSampled` | integer | Bytes read from the response |
| `error` | string | Error message if fetch failed |

#### `findings` array

Each finding has a `severity` (`critical`, `warning`, `info`, or `ok`), a `code`, and a `message`.

| Code | Severity | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| `SITEWIDE_DISALLOW` | critical | robots.txt contains `Disallow: /` |
| `ROBOTS_NOT_OK` | warning | robots.txt returned an error status |
| `NO_SITEMAP_DISCOVERED` | warning | No sitemap directive and `/sitemap.xml` not reachable |
| `CRAWL_DELAY_SET` | info | Crawl-delay values found |
| `COMMON_PRIVATE_PATHS_BLOCKED` | info | CMS/admin paths are blocked |
| `BASIC_DISCOVERY_OK` | ok | Basic robots/sitemap signals are healthy |

#### Example output

```json
{
  "inputUrl": "https://example.com",
  "normalizedUrl": "https://example.com/",
  "checkedAt": "2026-07-06T12:00:00.000Z",
  "robots": {
    "url": "https://example.com/robots.txt",
    "ok": true,
    "status": 200,
    "sitemapDirectives": ["https://example.com/sitemap.xml"],
    "disallowCount": 3,
    "allowCount": 0,
    "crawlDelay": []
  },
  "sitemaps": [
    {
      "url": "https://example.com/sitemap.xml",
      "ok": true,
      "status": 200,
      "contentType": "application/xml",
      "bytesSampled": 45000
    }
  ],
  "findings": [
    { "severity": "info", "code": "COMMON_PRIVATE_PATHS_BLOCKED", "message": "Common private/CMS paths are blocked from crawlers" },
    { "severity": "ok", "code": "BASIC_DISCOVERY_OK", "message": "example.com has basic robots/sitemap discovery signals" }
  ]
}
```

### Security

- Only public HTTP/HTTPS URLs are accepted
- SSRF protection: localhost, private IPv4/IPv6, and DNS-resolving-to-private IPs are blocked
- URLs with embedded credentials are rejected
- Redirects are revalidated before following
- No browser automation, no proxies

### Pricing

Pay per event:

| Event | Price |
|---|---|
| Actor start | $0.005 |
| Site audited | $0.01 |

A single-site audit costs approximately $0.015.

### FAQ

**What sitemap paths does it check?**
Sitemaps declared in robots.txt, plus `/sitemap.xml` and `/sitemap_index.xml` as fallback probes.

**Can I audit multiple sites in one run?**
This actor audits one site per run. For bulk audits, schedule multiple runs.

**What if robots.txt is missing?**
The actor returns a `ROBOTS_NOT_OK` warning and continues with sitemap probing.

# Actor input Schema

## `startUrl` (type: `string`):

Public website URL to audit. The actor fetches /robots.txt and probes for sitemaps. HTTP and HTTPS only. Private IP ranges are blocked.

## `timeoutSeconds` (type: `integer`):

Timeout per HTTP request (robots.txt and sitemap fetches).

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "startUrl": "https://example.com",
  "timeoutSeconds": 10
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (type: `string`):

No description

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "startUrl": "https://example.com"
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("phoenix2810/robots-sitemap-auditor").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = { "startUrl": "https://example.com" }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("phoenix2810/robots-sitemap-auditor").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print("💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/" + run["defaultDatasetId"])
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "startUrl": "https://example.com"
}' |
apify call phoenix2810/robots-sitemap-auditor --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": [
                "mcp-remote",
                "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=phoenix2810/robots-sitemap-auditor",
                "--header",
                "Authorization: Bearer <YOUR_API_TOKEN>"
            ]
        }
    }
}

```

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/ngSjuOXAZFbWgbO0o/builds/hxs4k43hJRdXXTcUp/openapi.json