In this article, we’ll explain how you can calculate how long Indexing Insight would take to monitor all your pages.
Before you start, please create a copy of the Inspection Cycle Calculator:
Step 1: Enter the total URLs you want to monitor
Our tool uses XML Sitemaps submitted to Google Search Console.
The easiest way to determine the number of URLs we need to download is to look at the Sitemaps report.
The ‘Discovered pages’ metric tells you the total number of URLs that will be downloaded from an XML sitemap or sitemap index.
You can also click on a sitemap index file in Google Search Console and it will show you all the XML Sitemaps within the file. It also provides you with a list of Discovered URLs for every sitemap.
If you don’t want to monitor all your pages, then you can use this report to identify the sitemaps you want to select and the total URLs for each sitemap.
Enter the Discovered Pages number for the sitemap(s) or sitemap indexed into the Inspection Cycle Calculator’s Total Website URLs:
That’s it! On to step 2.
Step 2: Identify your important subdirectory URLs
Enter a maximum of 100 subdirectories on your website with the largest number of URLs.
The subdirectories you enter must be included in the XML sitemaps that you are submitting to Indexing Insight.
For example, for the test domain I would enter the 5 biggest subdirectories on the website:
That’s it! On to step 3.
Step 3: Enter the no. of URLs in your important subdirectories
The final step is to enter the total number of URLs per subdirectory.
There are two ways to do this:
Estimated no. of URLs (Fast)
Exact no. of URLs (Slow)
Estimated no. of URLs
The easiest way to get the total no. of URLs for a subdirectory is to use the site command.
A site command ( will not be the most accurate method of getting the total number of URLs. But it is the quickest.
To use this method enter site:[ENTER SUBDIRECTORY URL] in Google Search. Then click on the tools icon which displays an estimated no. of URLs being pulled from the index.
Do this for each subdirectory you want to monitor and enter the total for each subdirectory:
Then, sort the total no. of URLs from Z to A in column D.
That’s it! You should now be able to see the results.
Exact no. of URLs
This is the slower but more accurate method.
You’ll need to do a web crawl using a tool like Screaming Frog (or have done a web crawl) on the website you want to monitor.
First, you’ll need the XML sitemap or sitemap index you want to submit to Indexing Insight. Then, you’ll need to submit the URLs to Screaming Frog in list mode.
Once the web crawl has run, you should be able to filter the HTML and view the data in subdirectories (sort the crawl data by URLs).
The total URLs for each subdirectory can be found in the subdirectory view. You can copy and paste the total URLs into the calculator.
Then, sort the total no. of URLs from Z to A in column D.
That’s it! You should now be able to see the results.
The Results
Once you’ve inputted the URL data into the calculator sheet, it's time to look at the results.
The calculator takes all the data you’ve inputted and determines whether your website is a good fit for our tool.
The metrics used to calculate your results are easy to understand:
Total URLs: Total number of important URLs you want us to monitor in Indexing Insight.
No. of web properties: Total number of web properties we’d create based on subdirectories.
Daily inspection limit: Total number of URLs that can be fetched on a daily basis.
Max Inspection Cycle: Maximum days it takes to monitor pages in the largest subdirectory.
Recommend Indexing Insight: Whether we recommend Indexing Insight (or not).
Data quality risk: The risk that the data would contain false positives or negatives.
The calculator uses the Total URLs, Daily Inspection Limit, and Max Inspection Cycle to identify the type of plan we recommend.
Data Quality
A key part of Google indexing monitoring is data quality.
Our tests over the last year with beta and alpha testers have shown that a page indexing state can change over time. It’s not a fixed state.
This means that monitoring indexing is best done daily, weekly or monthly.
Data Quality Risk | Inspection Cycle | Description |
None | 1 day | No chance of a monitored page’s indexing state being a false positive or negative. |
Low | 2-7 days | Low chance of a monitored page’s indexing state being a false positive or negative. |
Moderate | 8 - 30 | Moderate chance of a monitored page’s indexing state being a false positive or negative. |
High | 30+ | High chance of a monitored page’s indexing state being a false positive or negative. |
The longer the time between fetching the indexing data, the greater the chance of seeing false positives or negatives in your data.
This is why it is important to understand the data quality risk before investing in Indexing Insight, and we provide this information in our calculator.
If the calculator states you have a high risk of false positives or negatives, then there are things you can do:
Review the subdirectories you want to monitor
Identify the subdirectories that are not important
Remove them from the calculation (and see what it does)
Remember, Indexing Insights is about monitoring the most important pages on your website. So, make sure these are what you are inputting into the tool.
Next Steps
If you’re happy with the results in the calculator, then you can:
Learn if Indexing Insight is the right fit.
Book a demo to talk to our team about your needs.
Learn more about Indexing Insight’s pricing on our website.