Sitemap Monitoring
Cassian Sentinel™ takes daily snapshots of your sitemap and tells you exactly what changed — new pages, modified URLs, and removed content.
Cassian Sentinel™ monitors your store's XML sitemap every day, taking a snapshot of all discoverable URLs and comparing it against the previous day's snapshot. When pages are added, modified, or removed, you'll know about it — without having to check manually.
This is useful for catching unintended changes: a developer accidentally unpublishing a collection page, a bulk product import creating duplicate URLs, or a theme update breaking your sitemap structure.
What Cassian monitors
Sitemap discovery — Cassian checks your /sitemap.xml and any Sitemap: directives in your robots.txt file. If your store uses sitemap indexes (a sitemap of sitemaps), Cassian follows the index structure up to two levels deep.
Daily snapshots — Every day at 5 AM UTC, Cassian records the complete list of URLs in your sitemap. A fresh snapshot also runs after every scan to keep results current.
URL diffing — Each snapshot is compared against the previous one. Cassian reports:
| Change type | What it means |
|---|---|
| New URLs | Pages that appeared in the sitemap since the last check. Could be new products, new collections, or new blog posts. |
| Modified URLs | Pages where the <lastmod> timestamp changed. Indicates content was updated. |
| Removed URLs | Pages that were in the previous snapshot but are now absent. Could be intentional (product discontinued) or accidental (page unpublished by mistake). |
Where to see sitemap data
Sidebar → Sitemap shows the full sitemap monitoring dashboard:
- Total URLs currently in your sitemap
- New, modified, and removed URLs since the last check
- Date and time of the most recent sitemap check
- A list of changed URLs with their change type
Main dashboard → Sitemap card shows a compact summary with your total URL count and the date of the last check.
How to enable Sitemap Monitoring
Go to Sites in the sidebar and select your store.
Click Setup (or Settings).
Toggle Sitemap Monitoring to ON.
The first sitemap check runs within 24 hours, or after your next scan.
Availability
Sitemap Monitoring is available on all plans at no extra cost. There is no tier restriction — every store can benefit from knowing when its sitemap changes.
Check frequency
| Trigger | When it runs |
|---|---|
| Scheduled | Daily at 5 AM UTC |
| Post-scan | After every completed scan |
A 12-hour dedup window prevents redundant checks — if a scheduled check ran at 5 AM and a scan completes at 10 AM, Cassian won't re-check the sitemap unnecessarily.
Does it affect my Cassian Score?
No. Sitemap Monitoring is an informational feature. It does not contribute to or deduct from your Cassian Score™. The Technical Health layer separately checks that your sitemap exists and is valid XML — sitemap monitoring tracks changes over time, which is a different concern.
Frequently asked questions
My store's sitemap has thousands of URLs — is that a problem? No. Cassian handles sitemaps of any size. The snapshot captures all discoverable URLs regardless of how many there are.
What if my store doesn't have a sitemap?
Cassian will report that no sitemap was found. Most Shopify stores have an automatically generated sitemap at /sitemap.xml. If yours is missing, check that you haven't blocked it in your theme's robots.txt.liquid template.
Can I see historical snapshots? The Sitemap page shows the most recent check and the diff against the previous check. Older snapshots are retained for 90 days.
I see "removed URLs" but I didn't delete anything — why? Common causes: a product was set to draft status (removing it from the sitemap), a collection was hidden, or a blog post was unpublished. Check the listed URLs against your Shopify admin to see what changed.
How does this differ from the sitemap check in Technical Health? The Technical Health sitemap check validates that your sitemap exists, is valid XML, and contains your key page types. Sitemap Monitoring tracks changes day-over-day — it's about what's different, not whether the sitemap is structurally correct.