Why did my sitemap stop working?

If a sitemap worked before but no longer returns the expected data, first check whether the website has changed.

Check the website

Open a few representative pages and look for changes to:

• Page structure
• Class names or other selector attributes
• Pagination
• Login requirements
• The content displayed on the page

Find the first selector that stopped working

1. Open the sitemap in the browser extension.
2. Use Element Preview and Data Preview to test the selector tree.
3. Find the first selector that no longer matches or returns the expected value.
4. Update that selector.
5. Test the selectors below it to confirm they still work correctly.

Run a small local scrape

After updating the sitemap, run a small local scrape and check that the expected data is extracted correctly before using it for a larger job.

See the A sitemap stopped working documentation and Preview and validate a sitemap documentation for more information.