Competitor research from a sitemap
A sitemap is a public map of what a site thinks matters. Grouping it by section shows where a competitor puts its effort (a blog with 600 posts, 200 comparison pages, 40 integrations), and lastmod dates show how often they publish and update.
Questions
What is URL depth?
The number of path segments: /blog/post is depth 2. Important pages are usually shallow.
Why are some sections missing?
Not every site lists every page. The sitemap shows only what the site chose to list.
What is the limit for one sitemap?
50,000 URLs and 50 MB uncompressed. Larger sites split into several files listed in a sitemap index.
Is my data stored?
No. Sitemaps are read or built for the result you see and not kept.