Whether you are looking to make some updates to your website or researching a competitor, you might want to know how many pages a website contains. For your own website, this might be simple through your current content management system. If you still are unable to locate the number of pages on your website, there are a number of different tools available that are helpful when trying to locate the number of pages on a website.
Why is it important to know how many pages a website has?
While the goal is not to have as many pages as possible, it is important to ensure that you have an appropriate number of pages for a good visitor experience and search engine visibility. Individual web pages allow search engines to identify different types of content on your website and the keywords associated with them, which allows them to rank accordingly. By offering enough content on your website that identifies with keywords you want to rank well for you will be able to improve your search engine results.
Having the right amount of web pages also plays a role in your visitors experience on your website. You want to make sure you have enough content to keep them engaged with your brand, but avoid too many duplicate or unnecessary pages which might confuse them and keep them from finding key information they might be looking for.
Some tools to help identify the number of pages on your website include:
1. An XML Sitemap
An XML sitemap is a full list of your website’s URLs written in code format. The XML sitemap basically serves as a roadmap for your website, and allows search engines to understand different types of content located on each of your pages. Since an XML sitemap serves as an outline of your website, it is an easy way to identify the total number of pages on a website. You can use the steps below to locate your existing sitemap or to locate a sitemap for a competitor or similar organization:
Option A. First check the root folder of your domain for your sitemap using the URL formats below:
https://writemaps.com/sitemap.xml
https://writemaps.com/sitemap
https://writemaps.com/sitemap_index.xml
Option B. If this does not work, type in your domain name and replace /sitemap with /robots.txt
Option C. Try searching your website through a search engine and add filetype:xml and ‘sitemap’ in the URL
Option D. If this does not work, try using a free third party sitemap checking tool to locate your sitemap. Below are a few options to try:
https://seositecheckup.com/tools/sitemap-test
https://www.seoptimer.com/sitemap-checker
https://www.websiteplanet.com/webtools/sitemap-validator/
2. Use Google Search Console
The Google Search Console is a web service by Google that allows webmasters to optimize a website for visibility and improved search engine results. The Google Search Console is also a great tool to check the number of pages on a website. Just to note, this option will only work if you are the owner of the website. Just use the steps below:
- Open your Google Search Console Account
- Click the “Google Index Tab” on the left hand side
- Click on “Index Status” in the drop down below
- You will then be provided with the total number of indexed pages on your website
- As an alternative, click on the “Crawl” tab under search console and select “Sitemap” and you will be provided with your full XML sitemap details to locate total pages on your website
3. SEO Spider Crawl Tool (Screaming Frog)
Screaming Frog is a website crawling tool that helps with onsite SEO improvements through data extraction. This tool also allows you to generate an XML sitemap, which can be useful in identifying the total number of pages on your website as mentioned above. To generate a new sitemap on this application use the steps below:
- Crawl the website using the SEO spider tool and hit start (this also works for competitor websites)
- Select the sitemaps tab and click on “XML sitemap”
- Select pages you wish to include such as indexed or non indexed pages
- Exclude any specific pages if you wish to do so (such as any duplicate pages)
- Once your sitemap is generated you will be able to view the total page count for the website
4. Use Pagination Links
Pagination links are an easy way to check the total number of pages on a website. Not every website uses pagination links, but if so this is a great place to start when trying to get a general idea of the total page count on a website. A pagination link is usually located at the bottom of a webpage and will give numbers to click through each page until the end. Starting on the first page of a website, count the number of posts on that page. Then identify the total number of pages and multiply that number by the posts per page. It is important to note that this method may not work for more complex websites.
5. Site Operator Google Search
A simple Google search using the site operator function is another easy tool to get a basic understanding of total pages on a website. The results from this search will pull the total number of indexed pages on a website which might not be completely accurate if there are any unindexed pages, but it will at least give you a general idea of total page count.
- Open Google
- Use this outline for a website search site:sitename.com
- The total number of indexed pages will be accounted for at the top of the results of your website search
6. Broken Link Checkers (Google Broken Link Checker)
There are a number of broken link checking tools which also are an easy way to identify total page count on a website. Google offers a broken link checker browser extension that is simple to use. The tool will identify any broken links on a website as well as which ones are functioning optimally. Just add the total number of broken links to working links and you have an estimated total page count for a website.
7. Link Counting Tools (Small SEO tools)
There are a few free SEO tools online that will just provide you with a counted list of URLs to help identify the total number of pages on a website. While the features are a bit more limited using this method, it can be useful when evaluating competitors or similar organizations. This tool from Small SEO tools simply requires you just to enter the domain of the website you are looking to evaluate.
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