Sitemap

A sitemap is an XML file, usually found at /sitemap.xml, that lists the pages a website wants search engines to find. Most store platforms generate one automatically. On Shopify, the main sitemap points to separate sitemaps for products, collections, pages and blog posts.

Search engines use sitemaps to discover pages, which helps organic search traffic. For competitor research, the product sitemap is a public, complete list of a store's products, often with the date each one was last modified and an image link.

Things you can learn from a store's sitemap:

• Catalogue size, by counting the product entries
• New products, by comparing the sitemap over time or looking at recent dates
• Launch timing, by spotting when a group of related products appeared
• Collections, which show how the store groups its range

RivalSonar reads public sitemaps, together with public product feeds and storefront pages, to build product lists and detect changes. It respects normal crawling etiquette and does not bypass bot protection. If you want to check a store by hand, open its sitemap in your browser and follow the product sitemap link.