# Read a rival’s sitemap: their whole content plan in one file You can read a rival’s sitemap in five minutes. It shows the page families they publish, how they scale them, and what they still maintain. Here is where to find it, how to read an index, what lastmod tells you, and how to turn it into a hit list without a suite. Updated 2026-09-14 · Source: https://porteur.ai/guides/read-a-rivals-sitemap ## Find the sitemap fast Try the default first: rivalsite.com/sitemap.xml. If that 404s, try rivalsite.com/sitemap_index.xml. - Check robots.txt at rivalsite.com/robots.txt. Many sites list their sitemap there. - Try common CMS paths: /sitemap.xml.gz, /sitemap_index.xml.gz, /sitemap-posts.xml, /sitemap-pages.xml. - Use Google with operators: site:rivalsite.com filetype:xml sitemap. This often surfaces secondary sitemaps or older copies. - If you still cannot find it, load the homepage, view source, and search for “sitemap”. Some themes link it in the footer. Once found, save the URL. You will work from this one file or its children. ## Read a sitemap index without tools Many sites use a sitemap index that links to multiple sitemaps. Open /sitemap_index.xml and scan the entries. The names show the content split. ```xml https://rivalsite.com/sitemaps/sitemap-blog-1.xml 2026-09-04 https://rivalsite.com/sitemaps/sitemap-docs-1.xml 2026-08-22 https://rivalsite.com/sitemaps/sitemap-compare.xml 2026-09-10 ``` These dates are examples, typical rather than measured from any site. Open one child file. You will see a list of URLs with optional lastmod dates. That is the raw inventory for that section. ```xml https://rivalsite.com/compare/alpha-vs-beta 2026-09-10 https://rivalsite.com/compare/alpha-vs-gamma 2026-09-10 ``` If the index has many children, sample two or three. You are looking for naming hints and lastmod patterns first, not every URL yet. ## What the paths reveal: families, templates, scale Group URLs by path. Families share the first folder and often the second. Templates repeat the shape of the slug. Scale shows as lists with numbers that climb. - /blog/how-to-do-z, /blog/x-vs-y, /blog/best-x: one family, a blog. Likely informational intent. - /compare/alpha-vs-beta, /compare/alpha-vs-gamma: a comparison template. Commercial investigation intent. - /alternatives/alpha-alternatives: an alternatives template. Commercial investigation intent. - /integrations/slack, /integrations/zapier: an integrations hub. Navigational or commercial intent. - /pricing, /pricing/enterprise: a pricing family. Transactional intent. - /guides/getting-started, /guides/api: a docs family. Navigational intent. A fixed page looks different to a scaled template. /pricing is one page. /compare/x-vs-y has many near-duplicates by design. Note the slug rules they use. Count a few lists to estimate scale. If /compare has 120 URLs and /alternatives has 30, you see where they lean. This guides your own plan. ## Use lastmod to see what they maintain lastmod is a hint of change, not a guarantee. Still, patterns across a family are useful. Scan dates for each child sitemap and for a sample of URLs. - Clumped same-day lastmod in /compare can mean a periodic refresh or an automated republish. - A fresh lastmod on /pricing each month suggests they keep it current. Good sign of active testing. - Stale lastmod on /blog for a year hints at decay. You can enter those topics with fresh work. - Mixed dates in /integrations show where they add partners. That hints at roadmap and sales focus. Open a few fresh pages. Check if the content changed or only the date. Title, H1 and intro lines usually show real updates if they exist. ## Turn the sitemap into a hit list You now know the families and the scale. Pick the families that matter for a SaaS: category and “best X”, alternatives, X vs Y, jobs to be done, integrations, your own pricing and comparisons, and your product’s name. Build your plan there first. 1. **List the families you can enter** Example: /compare, /alternatives, /integrations, /blog/how-to. Skip families that do not fit your product or sales model. 2. **Sample titles to infer target queries** Open ten URLs per family. Read the title tags. They tell you which queries they target. Note the exact phrasing for each template. 3. **Check intent on the results page** Search “alpha vs beta” or “alpha alternatives”. If you see lists and comparisons, that confirms commercial investigation intent. 4. **Map your own equivalents** Create your /compare, /alternatives and /integrations structures. Follow a clean slug rule, for example /compare/yourapp-vs-alpha. 5. **Prioritise by reach and fit** Favour pages that match your product and where you can write from experience. Thin, me-too lists will not move the needle. Use Google’s autocomplete to collect variants. It suggests completions from real searches, weighted by popularity and freshness, and varied by language and location. It is a list of what people type, not volumes. Pair this with People also ask and related searches to widen the cluster. Volume is an estimate. Expect tools to disagree. As of 2026 this is normal. For free volumes, use Bing Webmaster Tools’ keyword research. For deeper work, any of the big suites will estimate volume and difficulty. Difficulty scores differ per tool and say nothing about intent fit. Check the results page yourself for match and features like AI Overviews or featured snippets that can reduce clicks relative to volume. ## Estimate their programmatic play Programmatic sections reveal themselves in the sitemap. Repeating slugs, alphabetical spread, and even numbering give the game away. Count them. Glance at one or two pages to see the template depth. - /compare/x-vs-y has two entities per page. You can build a better matrix with clearer tables and unique commentary. - /alternatives/x-alternatives is a list template. Win with tighter selection, first-hand notes, screenshots, and clear “who should pick this”. - /integrations/x-with-y can be shallow. Add setup steps, error cases, and metrics to track after setup. - /guides/how-to-do-z suggests jobs pages. Add video, checklists, and product-led steps where it helps. If they have 500 comparison pages and you have none, start narrow. Pick the ten you care about. Ship them well. Scale once the first ones earn clicks and links. A fixed example: yoursite.com/compare/yourapp-vs-alpha with a clear table, use cases, migration steps, and FAQs. ## Cross-check the sitemap against search and crawl A sitemap shows intent. Search shows reality. Run quick checks to avoid chasing ghosts or missing hidden sections. - site:rivalsite.com queries show what Google holds of them. Compare counts with the sitemap sections you saw. - Search a few of their exact titles in quotes. See if they rank. Weak rankings mark soft targets. - Open their titles for /compare and /alternatives. If many are duplicates of bigger rivals, you can outrank with useful content. - Crawl ten to twenty pages with Screaming Frog SEO Spider. Check internal links to these families. Strong internal links mean they care about the sections. If you have your own Search Console, check your query table for any “vs” or “alternatives” impressions. You may already have the seed traffic. Build the pages that match those queries. Track them in your performance report later. The two suites will never reconcile exactly with GA4. That is fine, they measure different things. ## What sitemaps miss and how to spot it Sitemaps are curated. They can be incomplete or out of date. Treat them as a floor, not a ceiling. Fill the gaps with simple checks. - Noindex or blocked pages are often left out. Use site: searches to surface odd paths. - Pagination, filters and parameter pages may be excluded. That is normal, they rarely belong in sitemaps. - Staging or preview paths should not be there. If you see them, the team is sloppy and you can expect other leaks. - Some sites publish only their top sections. Deep docs or changelogs may live in separate sitemaps or be omitted. If you suspect gaps, look for hints in the index names. A missing /docs sitemap in the index but deep docs ranking in site: results means there is a separate file. Try common variants like /docs/sitemap.xml or /help/sitemap.xml. > Rule: never mirror a rival’s structure blindly. Build only the parts that match your product, your buyer and your resources. ## Export and analyse without a suite You do not need a paid tool to get the URLs into a sheet. Two quick routes get you a clean list you can group and count today. 1. **Copy URLs from the sitemap into a sheet** Open the child sitemap, View Source, copy the lines, paste into a text editor, then into a sheet. Use split by “loc>” to clean. 2. **Use Google Sheets IMPORTXML** In A1: =IMPORTXML("https://rivalsite.com/sitemaps/sitemap-compare.xml","//url/loc"). In B1: =IMPORTXML(…,"//url/lastmod"). Duplicate for each child sitemap. 3. **Load the sitemap into Screaming Frog** Mode: List. Upload: Download Sitemap. It will fetch titles and status codes. The free version crawls up to 500 URLs. Enough for a sample. 4. **Group by folder and slug pattern** Add a helper column that extracts the first folder, for example using REGEXEXTRACT. Pivot by that to count families and spot scale. 5. **Sample pages for quality signals** Open five URLs per family. Note title clarity, intro strength, last updated, and internal links present. These shape your counter-plan. If you need visual maps and guided hints, Sitebulb and similar desktop crawlers produce explained audits and crawl visualisations. They are good for spotting weak internal links to big sections. Choose them when you audit structure, not for keyword research. As of 2026 that split still holds across tools. ## Build your own families and track impact Ship your first ten pages in the families you picked. Link them from your navigation or a hub page. Add clear CTAs and internal links from related posts and features. Keep slugs consistent. For example: yoursite.com/alternatives/alpha-alternatives, yoursite.com/compare/yourapp-vs-alpha, yoursite.com/integrations/slack. - Write titles that match the query and fit about 60 characters. Example: “YourApp vs Alpha: features, pricing, who it suits”. - Add a meta description you would click. Stay within 120 to 155 characters. Example: “See the differences, pricing and use cases before you choose.” - Link across families. From /alternatives/alpha-alternatives to /compare/yourapp-vs-alpha. From /integrations/slack to a how-to post. - Update lastmod when you make real changes. Do not roll dates without edits. It fools no one, and users bounce. Track queries and pages in Search Console once live. Watch impressions rise before clicks. Use your performance report to spot striking distance terms and intent misses. Keep GA4 for conversions. Expect the two to disagree, they count different things by design. ## Questions ### Is there a free website that can do competitor analysis? There is no single free site that does it all well. You can still do a lot for free. Read a rival’s sitemap, run site: searches, use Google’s autocomplete, People also ask and related searches for ideas, and get volumes from Bing Webmaster Tools. Then check rankings with manual searches. ### What are the two main types of sitemaps? XML sitemaps are for search engines and list URLs with optional lastmod. HTML sitemaps are pages for users that list sections. For competitor research, read the XML file first. It shows the families and scale. ### Is a sitemap still relevant? Yes. It helps search engines discover pages and helps you see how a site structures content. It is not a guarantee of indexing or freshness. Treat it as a guide, then confirm with search and a light crawl. ### How do I know which competitor pages to copy? Do not copy. Pick the families and specific topics that fit your product and buyer. Check the results page for intent. Build fewer, better pages with clear comparisons, proof, and outcomes your product delivers. ### How do I see what they updated recently? Scan lastmod in the index and child sitemaps. Then open a few fresh pages to confirm real edits. Titles, H1s and intros often reflect genuine updates. Patterns across a family are more reliable than one page. ### How do I find volumes for their target keywords? Use Google’s autocomplete for variants, People also ask and related searches for associated queries, and Bing Webmaster Tools for free volume estimates. Suite tools estimate from Google Ads data and panels and will disagree. Volume for a cluster is the sum of its members. ## Read next - [XML sitemap](https://porteur.ai/glossary/xml-sitemap): What to put in sitemap.xml, how lastmod works, how to create, validate and submit your XML sitemap, and the traps to avoid. - [Sitemap index](https://porteur.ai/glossary/sitemap-index): A sitemap index lists your sitemap files. Use it when you split URLs by section or language, or pass one sitemap’s 50,000 URL or 50 MB limit. - [The Sitemaps report: what Success, Has errors and Couldn’t fetch mean](https://porteur.ai/guides/search-console-sitemaps-report): How to submit your sitemap URL, read Success, Has errors and Couldn’t fetch, and fix invalid XML, 404s, cross‑host URLs and missing child sitemaps. - [Competitor keyword analysis by hand, with free data](https://porteur.ai/guides/competitor-keyword-analysis): Choose the right rivals, read their sitemaps, pull free keyword clues, find the gaps, and turn them into pages you can ship this week. - [Keyword gap analysis: the searches your rivals hold and you do not](https://porteur.ai/guides/keyword-gap-analysis): See how to find rivals’ search traffic you could win, filter it to your product, group it into pages, and turn gaps into briefs you can ship. - [Programmatic SEO for a small product: page families that earn](https://porteur.ai/guides/programmatic-seo): Design a page family that ranks without spam: pick the right template, prove demand per page, add unique data, and measure the folder. - [Log file analysis](https://porteur.ai/glossary/log-file-analysis): Read real crawler activity from your server logs, verify Googlebot, find wasted crawl and missed pages, and fix issues that crawl reports miss. - [Competitor backlink analysis: turn a rival’s links into your list](https://porteur.ai/guides/competitor-backlink-analysis): How to read a rival's referring domains, the four kinds you find, which you can realistically earn, and how to turn the export into ten emails. Paste a rival’s URL and get a free check that reads their site and the searches around it in about thirty seconds, with three findings you can use today. Free check: https://porteur.ai/