# URL count in sitemap

> URL count in the sitemap is the number of addresses a sitemap lists and how they are spread across the subdomains and sections of a website.

- **Check ID:** SM2
- **Area:** [Tech Stack](https://be1st.ai/glossary/fingerprint)
- **Tool:** [Tech Stack](https://be1st.ai/tools/tech-stack)
- **Page:** https://be1st.ai/glossary/fingerprint/url-count-in-sitemap

## Why it matters

The URL count shows the website's scope and determines how many subpages an audit should cover. A small site with 5 URLs is fine with a simple audit, while a large e-shop with thousands of products needs more subpages audited to get the full picture.

## In practice

A personal blog with 10 articles is a small site. An e-shop with 500 product pages needs an audit of several subpages, not just the homepage. The number of URLs in the sitemap vs. the actual page count reveals indexing issues.

## How be1st checks it

Counting URLs in the sitemap and analyzing their distribution across subdomains and site sections.

[Tech Stack](https://be1st.ai/tools/tech-stack), Site files tab.

## Sources

- [Sitemaps - Google Search Central](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/sitemaps/overview) (Google)

## Related terms

- [Sitemap validity](https://be1st.ai/glossary/fingerprint/sitemap-validity): Sitemap validity is whether a sitemap is well-formed XML with correct URLs that actually load.
- [SSL certificate existence](https://be1st.ai/glossary/fingerprint/ssl-certificate-existence): An SSL/TLS certificate is the digital certificate that lets a website use HTTPS and proves to browsers that the domain is genuine.
- [SSL certificate issuer](https://be1st.ai/glossary/fingerprint/ssl-certificate-issuer): The certificate issuer is the certificate authority that signed a website's SSL certificate, such as Let's Encrypt, DigiCert or Sectigo.
- [SSL certificate validity](https://be1st.ai/glossary/fingerprint/ssl-certificate-validity): Certificate validity is the period an SSL certificate is valid for. After its expiry date, browsers show visitors a security warning instead of the site.
- [Vector embeddings](https://be1st.ai/glossary/fingerprint/vector-embeddings): A vector embedding is a list of numbers that represents the meaning of a text, so texts with similar content end up close to each other.
- [Competitor similarity](https://be1st.ai/glossary/fingerprint/competitor-similarity): Competitor similarity is how close the content of two websites is, measured by comparing their vector embeddings.