If your sitemap lists more pages than your plan reads, the scan reads a sample spread across the whole site, not just the first pages in the file. The report says that it is a sample and how much of the sitemap it read.
Nothing that is found is hidden because of your plan. A plan decides how much of a large site is read, and everything found in those pages is shown in full.
How the sample is chosen
| In the sample | Why |
|---|---|
| The homepage | Its links appear across the site. |
| The most recently changed pages | Where new links turn up. Up to a quarter of what your plan reads, taken from the sitemap dates. |
| An even spread of the rest | So older pages are covered too, not just one section. |
There is no randomness. For the same sitemap and plan the sample is the same, and it changes only when pages or their dates change. A link on a page outside the sample is not seen, so a clean result covers only the pages the report says it read.
Know before you spend anything
Loading a sitemap shows your plan, the size of your site and the smallest plan that covers it. A scan also reads its first 25 pages on their own and projects what the whole site would cost in link checks. If it clearly would not fit, it stops before using any, and the report offers three ways forward: run it anyway for a labelled partial result, trim the sitemap, or choose a plan that covers more. Choosing a plan has the detail.
| Plan | Sitemap pages crawled | Links per scan | Link checks a month | Monitored sites |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | 100 | 50 | 50 | None |
| Starter | 1,000 | 2,000 | 2,000 | None |
| Pro | 10,000 | 12,000 | 12,000 | 15 |
| Scale | 50,000 | 50,000 | 50,000 | 50 |
Ways to cover more of the site
- Choose a plan that reads more pages. The recommendation is the smallest plan that covers the whole sitemap, never a bigger one than needed. A site larger than any standard plan is offered a custom plan.
- Trim the sitemap. Old tag pages, attachment pages and duplicates can inflate the count without adding links.
- Add the site to monitoring. It reads different pages on each check and a full pass about every 30 days, so a large site is covered over time. The first check on a very large site runs in stages.
- Scan sections separately. Sites split by section or language can be scanned from each sitemap.
Changing plan is possible from the Billing page whenever your site changes. If you move to a smaller plan, monitored sites beyond the new limit are paused with a note, and nothing is deleted.
How long it takes
| Pages in the sitemap | What to expect |
|---|---|
| Up to 100 | Usually a minute or two. |
| Up to 1,000 | Usually several minutes. |
| Up to 10,000 | Half an hour or more. |
| More than 10,000 | An hour or more. |
These are rough guides. A scan runs on Link Signals’ servers, so the page can be closed, and an email arrives when it finishes. See scans run in the background.
Where to read more
- Sampled scan: the definition and common misunderstandings.
- Sitemap discovery: how many sitemap files are followed and how pages are fetched.
- How monitoring works: which pages are read again, and when.
- Google on large sitemaps: how big sites split sitemaps into an index.
Questions
Is a sampled report less accurate?
It is accurate for the pages it read and silent about the rest. Because the sample includes the homepage, recent changes and an even spread, it is a fair picture of the site, but not a full check.
Can a sampled scan miss a link in a footer?
Footer and template links appear on every page, so they are very likely to be in any sample. They are counted once as a destination, which is also why a long footer does not inflate the projection.
Should I scan again to get a different sample?
The same sitemap and plan give the same sample, so repeating a scan does not widen coverage. Monitoring, a bigger plan or a section’s own sitemap does.
Load your sitemap and Link Signals shows the page count against your plan before anything runs.
