Content inventory comparison tool

Read the differences before changing anything

A content inventory comparison answers a narrow question: which of these exact page URLs appear in each of three lists? The intended inventory describes your chosen scope. The selected sitemap contributes the page URLs you extracted from it. Imported records describe what your reminder system currently lists. None is automatically the complete or correct version of your website.

Prepare the lists from the same site section and record when you collected them in your own notes. Finish an import before copying its records, or label the snapshot as incomplete. Paste page URLs, not the address of a sitemap file. If you need to locate the XML first, use the sitemap discovery and inventory reconciliation guide.

What each membership group tells you

All seven possible nonempty membership combinations appear in the summary, including groups with zero URLs. “In all three lists” confirms agreement only for those pasted strings. It does not establish page quality, successful email delivery or complete coverage.

• Inventory + sitemap; not imported: check import completion, the selected sitemap and the actual page list before reporting a defect.
• Inventory + imported; not in sitemap: check the chosen sitemap's scope and where the record came from.
• Inventory only: confirm that this public page belongs in the scope, and verify its URL with its owner.
• Sitemap + imported; not in inventory: ask whether the inventory omitted a relevant page or intentionally excluded it.
• Sitemap only: check both the intended scope and import status.
• Imported only: inspect the record's source and decide whether it still belongs in this review scope.

These are prompts for investigation, not automatic repair instructions. Assign a person and a next action in your own worksheet; retain unresolved items until somebody checks them. Do not delete records, alter canonicals or resubmit URLs solely because of a group label.

Methodology: exact strings, not canonical URLs

The tool trims surrounding spaces; tabs and other control characters on a URL line are rejected. It ignores blank lines and deduplicates identical strings within each list, reporting duplicate and blank-line counts separately. It then builds the union of the three sets and records presence or absence in each set. Equal list counts can still contain different URLs; the comparison checks membership rather than subtracting totals.

Matching preserves what you pasted: host spelling and case, http versus https, path case, trailing slashes and percent encoding remain distinct. A URL parser validates syntax only; its normalized output never becomes the comparison key. The tool does not follow redirects, resolve DNS, interpret canonical tags or judge whether two URLs reach the same page.

The input limits shown above bound browser work, not sitemap capacity or Staleaway import limits. Invalid input stops the entire comparison; errors identify line numbers without repeating the invalid value. Results display the first 100 unique URLs in first-seen order. The CSV includes the complete union, three yes/no membership columns and the same neutral follow-up labels.

Manual comparison worksheet and next steps

Without JavaScript, create a local worksheet with columns for URL, intended inventory, selected sitemap, imported records, owner, next action and checked result. Add every distinct URL once, mark yes or no in the three membership columns and investigate the same combinations described above. Keep sensitive records outside this public tool.

Public URLs can still contain sensitive information in their paths. Inspect your lists before pasting; a syntactically valid address is not a privacy guarantee. The comparison code makes no requests and writes no browser storage. The page's separate bounded public analytics never include pasted lists, result rows or tool-use events. Downloading creates a local CSV only when you choose it; check that file before sharing.

Google explains that sitemap submission does not guarantee crawling or indexing. This tool adds no search-engine observation. Inventory work also precedes content evaluation: Tulane's content audit guidance describes gathering content from multiple sources before assessing it. Sources checked November 1, 2026.

After resolving scope, use the website content review checklist to evaluate a page, then estimate a manageable batch with the content review workload planner. Staleaway can send recurring review reminders from an imported sitemap; this comparison does not import pages, schedule reminders or change saved records.

Cite this tool: Staleaway, Content Inventory Comparison Tool, updated November 1, 2026.