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Sitemap monitoring records changes to the URLs published by a project domain. It fetches the sitemap directly and does not use a connected account or provider.

How monitoring works

Bisibility requests https://<project-domain>/sitemap.xml over HTTPS. Redirects are followed, so the default path can redirect to a sitemap index such as sitemap_index.xml. The path is fixed. Bisibility does not discover sitemaps through robots.txt or probe alternate paths. A project without a domain is skipped, and a project whose default sitemap path does not return a valid sitemap fails for that run. Sitemap monitoring is separate from Google Search Console. It does not require a GSC connection and does not submit sitemaps to search engines.

Configure the schedule

Run the Temporal worker and configure: The Temporal worker schedule is the only scheduled sitemap-sync path. There is no HTTP cron fallback. See Self-hosting for worker setup.

Fetch and sitemap limits

Each sitemap file, including the parent and every child, uses these limits: A standard URL set stores at most 5,000 URLs. For a sitemap index, Bisibility fetches the first 5 child sitemaps in file order and stores at most 5,000 URLs in total across those children. It stops fetching remaining children once the URL budget is reached. Sitemap indexes are followed one level deep. If a child is another sitemap index, Bisibility does not descend into it. When the child or URL cap trims a snapshot, change detection covers only the stored subset. Changes beyond the first 5 children or 5,000 URLs do not produce timeline signals. Large sites, including WordPress sites that split sitemaps into files of about 1,000 URLs, can exceed these caps.

Change detection and retention

The first successful sync stores a baseline and emits no signal. Later syncs compare each URL with the previous snapshot and detect:
  • added URLs;
  • removed URLs;
  • URLs whose <lastmod> value changed.
When a change is detected, Bisibility emits one sitemap.changed signal to the project timeline with the source label Sitemap. Sitemap changes do not trigger alert rules; alert conditions cover ranking and CTR changes. Sitemap snapshots are retained for 90 days.