rank-math/list-sitemap-urls fetches the served sitemap index and, by default, follows its child sitemaps to enumerate the URLs actually advertised to search engines.
This reflects what is being served, which is not always what the settings say.
At a glance
| Ability | rank-math/list-sitemap-urls |
| Toolset | Rank Math — toolset/rank-math |
| Group | Rank Math › Sitemaps & llms.txt |
| Requires | Rank Math SEO, active on the site |
| Capability | manage_options |
| Safety | Read-only — changes nothing |
| Repeatable | Idempotent — running it twice leaves the same result |
| Ships in | AcrossAI Abilities Manager 0.0.34 and later |
How it works
Rank Math can cache sitemap files. When it does, the served sitemap is whatever was generated last, and a settings change — excluding a post type, adding a taxonomy — does not appear until the cache is cleared.
So a site can have a sitemap that is correctly configured and wrongly served, indefinitely. Reading the configuration confirms the intent; reading this confirms the reality.
Following the child sitemaps matters because the index alone is nearly content-free — it lists sitemap files, not URLs. The question people actually have is which pages are advertised, and that requires the second level.
On a large site that is a lot of fetching, which is why it is a deliberate call rather than part of the status read.
Discrepancies between this and the settings are fixed with rank-math/invalidate-sitemap-cache.
Input
| Name | Type | Required | What it is |
|---|---|---|---|
follow | boolean | No — defaults to true | Follow child sitemaps to enumerate URLs. |
limit | integer | No | Cap how many URLs to return. |
What comes back
| Name | Type | What it is |
|---|---|---|
urls | array | The URLs advertised. |
sitemaps | array | The child sitemaps found in the index. |
count | integer | How many URLs were enumerated. |
success | boolean | Whether the call completed. |
message | string | A one-line summary of what happened, suitable for showing a human. |
error_code | string | Present only on failure — a stable machine-readable reason, such as a missing field, a wrong field type or an unmet confirmation. |
Example
Ask your assistant:
What pages is our sitemap actually telling Google about?
It resolves to one call:
{
"ability": "rank-math/list-sitemap-urls",
"parameters": {
"limit": 200
}
}Worth knowing
- Reflects what is served, cache included.
- The index alone lists sitemaps, not URLs. Following is where the answer is.
- Expensive on a large site — it fetches every child sitemap.
- Differences from the settings mean a stale cache.
Related abilities
- Invalidate Rank Math Sitemap Cache — fix a discrepancy
- Get Rank Math Sitemap Status — the configuration side
Get the plugins:
AcrossAI Abilities Manager · AcrossAI MCP Manager
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