How to Crawl and List All Website URLs Efficiently

If you’ve ever tried to get all pages of a website—whether for SEO, sales prospecting, or just to finally answer “how big is this site, really?”—you know it’s not as easy as it sounds. Websites today are like digital funhouses: dynamic content, infinite scroll, JavaScript menus, and hidden landing pages are everywhere. In fact, about , and over . That means a lot of the web’s content is hidden from old-school crawlers—and from you.

As someone who’s spent years in SaaS, automation, and AI, I’ve watched business teams in sales, marketing, and operations waste hours (sometimes days) trying to crawl entire websites and list all website URLs—only to end up with incomplete, out-of-date results. The good news? Modern AI-powered tools like have made it possible for anyone—yes, even if you’re not a developer—to crawl entire websites and get a full, accurate list of URLs in just a few clicks. Let’s break down how it works, why it matters, and how you can do it yourself.

What Does It Mean to Get All Pages of a Website?

At its core, crawling an entire website means systematically navigating every link, menu, and hidden corner to create a complete list of every accessible URL. This isn’t just about grabbing what’s on the homepage or in the sitemap. It’s about finding:

• Static pages: The “old school” pages with fixed URLs and content visible in the HTML.
• Dynamic pages: Content loaded by JavaScript, “load more” buttons, infinite scroll, or interactive elements—often invisible to basic crawlers.
• Orphan pages: URLs that aren’t linked from anywhere else (no inbound links), so they’re missed by tools that just follow links.
• Deeply nested or paginated content: Think e-commerce sites with hundreds of product pages spread across dozens of “next” buttons.

Why is this so tricky? Because traditional crawlers and manual methods often miss anything that isn’t right there in the HTML or sitemap. If a page only appears after you click a button, scroll down, or log in, it’s invisible to most older tools. And if you’re relying on a sitemap.xml file, you’re trusting that it’s up-to-date (spoiler: it often isn’t).

The real goal is simple: build a complete, accurate inventory of every page URL on the site—static, dynamic, orphaned, or deeply buried.

Why Crawl Entire Website and List All Website URLs?

You might be thinking, “Do I really need every single URL?” For a lot of business use cases, the answer is a resounding yes. Here’s why:

For example, sales teams often discover “Contact Us” or partner pages that aren’t linked in the main menu—potential goldmines for leads. Marketing teams use full URL lists to spot unlinked landing pages competitors are running for PPC campaigns. And SEO teams need a complete inventory to fix crawl errors, optimize every page, and avoid duplicate content issues.

Recent surveys show , and . All of these workflows start with one thing: a complete list of URLs.

Comparing Solutions: Traditional vs. AI Web Scraper Tools

Let’s talk about the tools. There are three main ways people try to crawl entire websites and list all website URLs:

1. Manual methods (copy-paste, browser extensions, or using a sitemap): Slow, error-prone, and guaranteed to miss dynamic or orphan pages.
2. Traditional crawlers (Screaming Frog, SEMrush, custom scripts): Powerful for static sites, but struggle with JavaScript, infinite scroll, and require technical setup.
3. AI-powered web scrapers (like Thunderbit): Use artificial intelligence to “see” the site like a human, handle dynamic content, and require zero coding.

Here’s how they stack up:

stands out for its low barrier to entry, AI-powered field suggestion, and ability to handle dynamic, complex sites without any code or templates. It’s built for business users who just want results—no technical headaches.

Step 1: Preparing to Crawl an Entire Website

Before you unleash your inner data detective, a little prep goes a long way:

• Define your goal: Are you after all URLs, just product pages, or something else?
• Check for a sitemap: Visit https://example.com/sitemap.xml—it’s a good reference, but don’t rely on it exclusively.
• Review robots.txt: At https://example.com/robots.txt, see if there are sections you should avoid (Thunderbit respects these by default).
• Segment big sites: For massive e-commerce or directory sites, consider breaking the crawl into sections (e.g., by category or region).

This groundwork helps you avoid missing key pages and keeps your crawl focused.

Step 2: Using Thunderbit to Get All Pages of a Website

Now for the fun part. Here’s how I use to crawl entire websites and list all website URLs—no code, no stress.

Setting Up Thunderbit for Your First Crawl

1. Install the Thunderbit Chrome Extension: Grab it from the or .
2. Sign up or log in: The free tier lets you scrape up to 6 pages (or 10 with a trial boost).
3. Pin the extension: For quick access in your browser.

Browser vs. Cloud Scraping:

• Use browser mode if you need to log in or scrape private content (Thunderbit uses your session).
• Use cloud mode for large, public sites—Thunderbit scrapes up to 50 pages at once, super fast.

Leveraging AI Suggest Fields for Accurate URL Extraction

1. Navigate to your starting page (homepage, category, or section).
2. Open Thunderbit and click “AI Suggest Fields.”
3. Let the AI scan the page—it’ll suggest fields like “Page Title” and “URL” for every link it finds.
4. Review and tweak fields: You can rename, remove, or add custom instructions (e.g., “only URLs containing /product/”).
5. No more guessing selectors or writing XPath—Thunderbit’s AI does the heavy lifting.

Scraping Subpages and Handling Pagination

• Pagination: Thunderbit auto-detects “next” buttons, infinite scroll, and loads all results—not just the first page.
• Subpage scraping: After your initial crawl, click “Scrape Subpages” to have Thunderbit visit every URL in your list and extract more details (like product info or contact links).
• Multi-level crawling: For complex sites (e.g., directories with categories and subcategories), Thunderbit can recursively crawl deeper levels—no manual setup required.

This is a lifesaver for e-commerce, real estate, or any site with deeply nested content.

Step 3: Exporting and Organizing Your Website URL List

Once Thunderbit finishes, you’ll see a neatly structured table of URLs (and any other fields you grabbed). Now what?

• Export options:
  • Excel/CSV: For classic spreadsheet workflows.
  • Google Sheets: Collaborate with your team instantly.
  • Airtable/Notion: Turn your URL list into a live database or internal wiki.
  • JSON: For developers or integrations.

Thunderbit’s exports are clean—no messy formatting, no deduping required. But if you want to get fancy:

• Filter by URL pattern (e.g., only /blog/ or /products/).
• Deduplicate: Thunderbit avoids duplicates, but always good to check.
• Categorize: Use spreadsheet filters to group URLs by section or type.

Step 4: Advanced Tips for Crawling Complex or Dynamic Websites

Some sites are trickier than others, but Thunderbit has your back:

• Infinite scroll: Thunderbit’s AI simulates scrolling and clicks “load more” automatically. If needed, manually scroll a bit first to help the AI spot the pattern.
• Sites requiring login: Log in first, then use browser mode—Thunderbit scrapes as your authenticated user.
• Popular site templates: Thunderbit offers instant templates for Amazon, Zillow, Shopify, and more—just one click and you’re scraping.
• Scheduling: Need to keep your URL list fresh? Use Thunderbit’s to run crawls automatically (e.g., “every Monday at 9am”).

For massive sites, you can even input multiple starting URLs and let Thunderbit crawl them all in parallel.

Step 5: Ensuring Accuracy and Compliance When You Crawl Entire Website

Getting the data is great—but you want to be sure it’s accurate and you’re playing by the rules.

• Verify completeness: Cross-check your results with the site’s sitemap or use a Google site:example.com search to estimate total pages.
• Spot-check URLs: Click a few to make sure they’re valid and not “javascript:void(0)” or placeholders.
• Respect robots.txt: Thunderbit honors these by default, but always double-check if you’re scraping sensitive or private content.
• Privacy and ethics: Stick to public, non-personal data. If you’re scraping user profiles or comments, make sure you comply with privacy laws like GDPR/CCPA.
• Throttle requests: Thunderbit is polite by default, but you can slow down the crawl for smaller sites to avoid overloading them.

Conclusion & Key Takeaways

Crawling an entire website and listing all website URLs used to be a technical slog—now, with AI-powered tools like , it’s a two-click job for anyone. Whether you’re in sales, marketing, SEO, or operations, having a complete, accurate URL inventory is a competitive advantage. Here’s what to remember:

• Thunderbit’s AI handles dynamic content, infinite scroll, and hidden pages that old tools miss.
• No coding or templates required—just “AI Suggest Fields” and “Scrape.”
• Export your results instantly to Excel, Sheets, Notion, or Airtable.
• Advanced features (subpage scraping, scheduling, templates) make it perfect for business users.
• Ethical and compliant by design—so you can focus on insights, not headaches.

If you’re tired of missing pages, broken scripts, or hours lost to manual crawling, give a spin. You’ll be surprised how much of the web you can uncover—and how much time you’ll get back for the work that actually matters.

For more deep dives and practical guides, check out the or our step-by-step .

FAQs

1. What’s the difference between crawling a website and scraping it?
Crawling means systematically visiting every page and link on a site to build a list of URLs. Scraping is extracting specific data (like product info or contact details) from those pages. Thunderbit does both: it crawls to find all URLs, then scrapes the data you want from each page.

2. Can Thunderbit handle sites with infinite scroll or dynamic content?
Yes! Thunderbit’s AI detects infinite scroll, “load more” buttons, and JavaScript-generated content, loading all results—not just what’s visible in the HTML.

3. How do I avoid missing hidden or orphan pages?
Thunderbit’s AI navigation and subpage scraping features are designed to find links that aren’t in the main menu or sitemap, including orphan pages and dynamically loaded content.

4. Is it legal to crawl and list all website URLs?
Generally, crawling public pages is legal, but you should always respect robots.txt, site terms, and privacy laws. Thunderbit encourages ethical scraping and helps you avoid restricted areas.

5. How can I keep my URL list up-to-date as the website changes?
Use Thunderbit’s to run crawls automatically (daily, weekly, etc.), so your list always reflects the latest site structure.

Ready to crawl smarter, not harder? and see how easy it is to get all pages of a website—no code, no stress, just results.

Learn More