Help
Wordpress Quick Start Guide You can get started for free and try the plugin.
Installation Firstly you need to fill in your email address and website address to download the plugin. We’ll then email you a download link.
Download Plugin Once you have downloaded the plugin zip file, go to the wordpress plugin options, upload and activate the XML Sitemap Generator plugin. More detailed install instructions be found in our Installation guide
What is a sitemap? Sitemaps are a vital component of website maintainance and SEO, serving as a means to communicate with search engines and facilitate the discovery of web content. In addition to the ubiquitous XML sitemaps, this document will also touch upon other formats such as RSS and HTML sitemaps.
As well as the list of pages you can advise search engines on when the page was last updated, how often it is updated and the relative priority of each page within your website.
Installing Wordpress XML Sitemap Plugin Installing our Wordpress plugin is as simple as installing any other. If your website is mission critical and already live we do recommend you try test before going live to ensure the plugin operates as expected with your website.
System requirements Our plugin is relatively simple and runs on demand to render sitemaps ensuring only the latest version is served.
Recommend minimum setup :
WordPress 4.
XML Sitemap Example If you are familiar with RSS feeds you can think of an XML sitemap a bit like a special RSS feed for all of your website. An XML sitemap uses XML to represent all the pages of your website in a structured format to provide search engines with important information about the content of your website .
The Sitemap protocol is an open standard supported by the main search engines including Google, Microsoft Bing, Yandex, Baidu and more.
Configuring the Wordpress XML Sitemap Plugin Key wordpress settings For the plugin to work correctly it is important that your permalink settings are NOT set to plain.
Locating the settings page You can access the plugin settings either by going to your installed plugins or from the settings menu.
Output URLs At the top of the settings page you can see a list of filenames. You can leave these as default but you can change them if you desire.
Which is the best XML Sitemap Generator for you? There are a range of sitemap generators available for your website and they come in a number of forms. Online spiders, tools to download and run on your PC as well as scripts to install on your server. Which sitemap generator is best for you will depend on your circumstances.
Some questions to think about when choosing your sitemap generator include:
Wordpress XML Sitemap Plugin News sitemap A Google News sitemap is a specialized XML file that web publishers can use to help search engines discover and index news articles on their websites more effectively. It is important that news sitemaps contain original recent content for them to perform well and meet with googles guidelines.
They are similar to regular XML Sitemaps, but contain additional information such as content headlines.
To enable news sitemaps you simply check the option in the main sitemap settings in the general section.
Basic HTML concepts This page provides basic information about key HTML concepts which are helpful when it comes to sitemaps and how our spider processes your website.
Head meta tags In the header of your page there can sometimes be tags that direct search engines and our spider. For most pages you will want it to index and follow. Our spider automatically follows these rules.
<meta name="robots" content="index, follow" /> Links and query strings The XmlSitemapGenerator will follow all standard links such as the below example
Wordpress XML Sitemap Plugin Images Image sitemaps are an extension of XML sitemaps which includes image information along side the page. Incuding images in your sitemap can help google find and index your images in search results.
By enabling the setting in our wordpress plugin we will try to automatically parse your page, extract any images and include them in your sitemap.
To enable images simply check the box in the main sitemap settings in the general section.
Wordpress Sitemap Posts / Pages settings By default, pages and posts will take the values set in the general settings however, when adding or eddting a category or tag you can override these settings.
You can set whether to include this page/post in your sitemap, and the usual sitemap priorty and frequency.
Any settings here will over ride the general settings and those set in categories/tags.
Tip Maintaining settings at a page level can be hard work and should be reserved for high value pages.
Robots.txt sitemap entries The robots.txt file is a file based tool for controlling how search engines crawl and index your website. One of its key features is the ability to specify the location of your XML sitemap(s). Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to do it:
Create or Access Your robots.txt File: If you don’t already have a robots.txt file, you can create one in the root directory of your website.
Filtering sitemap pages and images Filtering is a powerful feature that allows you to precisely control which pages and images are excluded from your sitemap in our online and windows sitemap generator. This guide will walk you through the process of creating filtering rules using expressions, ranging from simple wildcard expressions to more advanced techniques. We follow the ANSI-92 standard for our filtering expressions.
Simple Wildcard Filters Wildcard expressions provide a flexible way to match URLs based on patterns.
Wordpress Sitemap Category / Tag settings By default, categories and tags will take the values set in the general settings however, when adding or eddting a category or tag you can override these settings.
You can set whether to include this tag/category in your sitemap, and the usual sitemap priorty and frequency.
You can also determine if the child pages/posts for inherit these values. This needs some careful consideration when designing your sitemap settings given that mutliple tags and categories can apply.
Publishing Your XML Sitemap and Notifying Search Engines It is assumed that you have generated your sitemap and uploaded to a suitable location on your website or blog (usually the root folder).
The next step is to ensure it is accessible and known to search engines.
Robots.txt It is important to include your sitemap in your robots.txt file as this will ensure it is organically doscoverable however it should be noted that this alone does not ensure your website and sitemap ges discovered.
Troubleshooting Wordpress XML Sitemap plugin When installing and using the sitemap plugin there are a few common issues people encounter. The following guide covers the common issues.
Important note - Changing your WordPress settings can have undesirable consequences and can impact on your SEO or even take your site offline. Ensure you back up regularly and if in doubt ask an expert.
Wordpress / Plugin versions You can find the minimum requirements on our Installation guide
XML Sitemaps Frequently Asked Questions What is an XML sitemap? An XML sitemap is a file that lists all the pages of your website, providing essential information to search engines like Google about the structure and content of your site. You can find more on the What is an XML sitemap page.
Why do I need an XML sitemap? An XML sitemap helps search engines discover and index your web pages more efficiently.
Wordpress XML Sitemap Plugin Change Log 2.1.0 Release Date: Oct 3rd, 2023
New : Tested up to WordPress 6.4 New : Depricated support for multi-site Fix : Bad robots entry Fix : Warning message HTML issue Fix : Updated / fixed new website urls Fix : Removed email updates form Fix : Removed donate links 2.0.8 Release Date: June 22nd, 2022
Fix news sitemap date format Added missing escaping Change log truncated to 2.