The XML Sitemap URL Extractor is a powerful tool designed to simplify the process of extracting and analysing URLs from your website’s XML sitemaps. Whether you’re dealing with a simple sitemap or a complex multi-layered sitemap index with nested child sitemaps, this tool automatically processes and extracts all URLs in seconds. Enter your sitemap URL or domain name, and the tool intelligently detects the sitemap structure, recursively follows all references, and provides you with a complete, organised list of URLs ready to export or download. The Extractor will also flag URLs that should arguably changed to ‘noindex’ Read this for more information –Mastering Noindex: A Smart SEO Strategy for Your E-commerce Store. Last, you can use this tool to capture URLs for our HTML sitemap generator.

How This Tool May Be Helpful:

This tool is invaluable for website owners, developers, SEO professionals, and digital marketers who need quick access to their site’s complete URL structure. When conducting SEO audits, you can instantly extract all indexed URLs to cross-reference with analytics data, identify indexation issues, or compare against your actual site structure. For developers migrating websites or implementing redirects, having a complete list of URLs from the old sitemap makes it easy to ensure every page is accounted for and properly mapped to new locations. Content managers can use the extracted URLs to create content inventories, identify orphaned pages, or plan site reorganisations.

The tool’s ability to handle multi-layer sitemap indices is particularly useful for large websites that split their sitemaps across multiple files. Rather than manually opening and processing each child sitemap individually, the extractor automatically follows all references and compiles a single comprehensive list. This saves considerable time when you need to bulk-check URLs for broken links, analyse URL patterns, import URLs into other SEO tools, or create custom reports. The export functionality allows you to easily integrate the URL list into spreadsheets, scripts, or other analysis tools, making it an essential utility for anyone managing or auditing websites at scale.

The XML Sitemap URL Extractor is a free tool that extracts all URLs from XML
sitemaps in seconds. Simply enter a sitemap URL (or just a domain name) and
get a clean, organised list of all URLs you can copy or download.

Perfect for:

• 📊 SEO Analysis – Quickly see all pages being indexed – and those that should be ‘noindex’
• 🔄 Content Migration – Extract URLs when moving to a new platform
• 📝 Site Audits – Get a complete list of pages for review
• 🗺️ HTML Sitemaps – Use extracted URLs to create visual sitemaps
• 📋 Bulk Operations – Get URL lists for bulk editing or analysis
• 🔍 Competitive Research – See what pages competitors are indexing
  

Automatically identifies and flags user account pages, checkout processes, and other e-commerce URLs that shouldn’t be in your sitemap, helping you maintain SEO best practices and optimise crawl budget. Read more about noindex strategy

How to Use the XML Sitemap URL Extractor

Step 1: Enter a Sitemap URL or Domain

You can enter:

• Just the domain: example.com
• Full sitemap URL: https://example.com/sitemap.xml
• Sitemap index: https://example.com/sitemap_index.xml

The tool automatically detects the sitemap location if you only enter the domain!

Examples to try:

• wordpress.org
• https://woocommerce.com/sitemap_index.xml
• yourwebsite.com/sitemap.xml

Step 2: Choose What to Extract (If Applicable)

For simple sitemaps:
URLs are extracted automatically – skip to Step 3!

For sitemap indices (multiple child sitemaps):
You’ll see a list of child sitemaps to choose from, like:

📂 Child Sitemaps Detected

📄 Post Sitemap
Contains: Blog posts and articles
[Extract URLs from This Sitemap]

📄 Page Sitemap
Contains: Website pages
[Extract URLs from This Sitemap]

📄 Product Sitemap
Contains: Products (if WooCommerce/e-commerce)
[Extract URLs from This Sitemap]

Your options:

• Click “Extract URLs” on a specific child sitemap to get just those URLs
• Click “Extract All URLs” to get everything from all sitemaps

Step 3: View & Use Your URLs

Once extracted, you’ll see:

• ✅ Total number of URLs found
• ✅ Source sitemap name (if from child sitemap)
• ✅ Complete list of URLs, nicely formatted
• ✅ Easy-to-use action buttons

What you can do:

• Review Flagged URLs
• Copy to Clipboard – One click to copy all URLs
• Download as File – Save URLs as a .txt file
• Clear & Start Over – Extract from a different sitemap

Step 4: Use Your Extracted URLs

Common uses:

• Paste into your HTML sitemap generator
• Import into SEO tools for analysis
• Use in content planning spreadsheets
• Bulk check with broken link checkers
• Compare with analytics to find issues
• Check the noindex – and follow any SEO Best Practice Alerts