The path structure is the interesting part
The total is mildly useful. The breakdown by folder is genuinely informative, because it shows where a competitor decided their traffic would come from.
Counting URLs per path segment gives you a rough map of their strategy. Sixty URLs under one folder and four under another is a clear statement of priority, whatever their marketing says.
We did exactly this on a competitor while researching, and the result reframed our own plan: their sitemap showed 281 documentation pages against 136 blog posts, meaning more than half their indexed surface was docs. That was not visible from browsing the site and it changed what we thought they were doing.
What it reveals beyond size
Three things worth looking for once you have the list.
Clusters they have built that you have not. A folder full of pages on one theme is a content bet, and its size tells you how much they committed.
Programmatic patterns. URLs that clearly follow a template, one per city or per integration or per competitor name, mean they are generating pages at scale rather than writing them individually.
Abandoned sections. A folder with a handful of pages and dates that stop suddenly is an experiment that did not work, which is useful to know before you repeat it.
The limits, honestly
A sitemap is a claim, not an audit, and there are three specific ways it can mislead.
Pages can exist without being listed. We found a competitor with 48 free tools, none of which appeared in any of their sitemaps. Reading only their sitemap would have missed the single most important thing about their strategy.
It says nothing about performance. A thousand pages that rank for nothing is worse than fifty that rank well, and the sitemap cannot tell you which you are looking at.
And it can be stale, listing pages that were removed or missing pages added recently.
So use it as a fast first read, then look at what actually ranks before drawing conclusions.
Common questions
Is it allowed to read a competitor's sitemap?+
Yes. A sitemap is published deliberately so crawlers can read it, and fetching it is no different to viewing any public page.
Does a sitemap show every page a competitor has?+
No. Pages can exist without being listed, and some sites deliberately keep sections out. We found one competitor with 48 tools that appeared in none of their sitemaps.
What is more useful than the total count?+
The breakdown by path. Counting URLs per folder shows where a competitor invested, which is a clearer statement of strategy than anything on their marketing pages.
Does page count predict traffic?+
No. A thousand pages ranking for nothing is worse than fifty that rank well, and a sitemap cannot distinguish the two. Check what actually ranks before drawing conclusions.
Sources