---
title: "Sitemap health check and technical site crawl | SEO Skill"
description: "Check sitemap URL status, redirects and access first. Run the full technical SEO crawl only when you need page content, links, metadata and affected URLs."
canonical: "https://seoskill.dev/docs/reports/site-crawl"
language: "en"
---

# Sitemap health check and technical site crawl

Start with a light sitemap health pass, especially on a large or unfamiliar site. Move to the full crawl when its response evidence needs investigation or you need page-level technical checks.

## Install and run the audit

Install the CLI once, then run `seo start` to connect your site and Google data. After setup you can run this audit yourself or ask your agent to run it.

Install the SEO CLI globally.

```
npm i -g seo
```

Run setup after installation.

```
seo start
```

Check sitemap URL health before running a full site crawl.

```
seo crawl --sitemap-url https://example.com/sitemap.xml --health
```

## What you get from this audit

Check sitemap URL status, redirects and access first. Run the full technical SEO crawl only when you need page content, links, metadata and affected URLs.

Best for

You need a fast status, redirect, robots, network, or access check across sitemap URLs.

Needs

Explicit sitemap or limited sitemap discovery

You get

Check sitemap URL status, redirects and access first. Run the full technical SEO crawl only when you need page content, links, metadata and affected URLs.

Use next

Fix the most important technical SEO issues

Every report follows the same rules for missing data and outside estimates.[See how report data works](https://seoskill.dev/docs/reports#how-report-data-works).

## What you need before you run it

The report uses the information below. Optional sources are only used when you ask for them.

### Explicit sitemap or limited sitemap discovery

Defines the URL set for the health pass and keeps sitemap source, completeness, redirects, and limits visible.

### Live responses and robots.txt

Provides status, redirect, network, crawler access, and robots decisions without consuming page bodies in health mode.

### Full crawl page evidence when requested

Adds discovered links, metadata, directives, content extraction, structured data, and rendered evidence after the health pass.

### Optional Search Console and Google Analytics joins

Adds available Search Console metrics to fetched landing pages in full mode without filling missing rows with zero.

## Use a different report for these jobs

These jobs need a different report or a manual review.

[

### The question is about one known URL and you do not need page discovery or a site-level baseline.

Run the page audit. It fetches one URL and returns focused response, metadata, canonical, directive, link, structured-data, and content evidence.

SEO page audit

](https://seoskill.dev/docs/reports/audit-page)[

### Clicks or impressions changed and you need to find which pages, queries, countries, or devices explain the movement.

Run the search performance overview. It compares Search Console evidence and points to the segments and focused reports behind the movement. A crawl cannot explain search demand by itself.

SEO performance report

](https://seoskill.dev/docs/reports/search-performance-overview)

## Use the audit with an agent or in code

The command above is enough for most work. These options let an agent, script or application run the same audit with explicit input and structured output.

### CLI

Use the report catalog when an agent, script or CI job needs predictable JSON instead of the normal terminal output. Check the current input first, then run the audit with the validated parameters.

Check the current input before the agent or script runs the audit.

```
seo reports describe site-crawl --json
```

Once the input is valid, run the audit through the report catalog.

```
seo reports run site-crawl --params '{"url":"https://example.com/","health":true,"sitemapUrl":"https://example.com/sitemap.xml","maxPages":100}' --json
```

### MCP

An MCP agent follows the same two-step flow. It inspects the current schema, fills the required fields and only then runs the audit.

Ask the MCP server for the current audit input.

```
{
  "id": "site-crawl"
}
```

Run the audit after the agent has checked and filled the input.

```
{
  "id": "site-crawl",
  "params": {
    "url": "https://example.com/",
    "health": true,
    "sitemapUrl": "https://example.com/sitemap.xml",
    "maxPages": 100
  }
}
```

### TypeScript

Install the package in a Node 22 project when your application needs to run the audit directly. The result includes the same evidence, warnings and limits returned through the CLI and MCP server.

Add the SEO package to your project.

```
npm install seo
```

Run the audit from your TypeScript application.

```
import { executeReport } from 'seo/mcp'

const result = await executeReport(
  'site-crawl',
  {
  "url": "https://example.com/",
  "health": true,
  "sitemapUrl": "https://example.com/sitemap.xml",
  "maxPages": 100
},
)

console.log(result)
```

## What to do next

Start with the issues affecting important pages, then open the affected URLs instead of changing a template from a count alone. Save the next crawl with comparable limits so you can verify what disappeared and what remained.

1.  01Audit a failed health URL directly or run full mode for page-level evidence.
2.  02Use top fixes and affected URLs after the full crawl.

## Related reports

[

Rank technical SEO issues using crawl severity, affected pages and available search evidence so the next fix has a clear reason and supporting evidence.

Technical SEO priority report

](https://seoskill.dev/docs/reports/top-fixes)[

Find every URL affected by a technical SEO issue, inspect the crawl evidence on each page and turn one broad finding into a practical fix list.

Technical SEO affected URLs

](https://seoskill.dev/docs/reports/affected-urls)[

Compare two saved SEO crawls to find new, fixed and changed technical issues. Check the crawl scope before treating the difference as real or complete.

SEO crawl comparison

](https://seoskill.dev/docs/reports/compare-crawls)

## Sources used by this audit

These primary sources define the provider data or search controls used by the result.

-   [Google robots.txt guidance](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/robots/intro)
-   [Google canonical URL guidance](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/consolidate-duplicate-urls)
-   [Google guidance for crawlable links](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/links-crawlable)
-   [Google JavaScript SEO guidance](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/javascript/javascript-seo-basics)