Description
Since WordPress 5.5, an XML sitemaps functionality is provided in the WordPress core. These sitemaps let search engine crawlers find all URLs quickly and comprehensively.
But there is not any configuration interface. This plugin provides an option page for all XML sitemaps generated by the WordPress core.
WP Sitemaps Config let you easily
- disable the XML sitemaps completely with a single click
- remove the sitemaps for all public posts, pages, categories, tags, post formats and users
- remove the sitemaps for all public custom post types and custom taxonomies
- add the entries Priority, Change Frequency and Last Modification Date to each URL
- exclude single posts and pages from the XML sitemaps
- set the priority and change frequency for each post and page manually
This plugin is ready for multi sites. It requires WordPress 5.5 or higher. To use the XML sitemaps the PHP extension SimpleXML must run on your server.
Demo
You want to test WP Sitemaps Config before installing on your site? Try it out on your free dummy site and click here.
Read also more on Best Sitemap Plugins for WordPress in 2023
Installation
This section describes how to install the plugin and get it working.
- Upload
wp-sitemaps-config.phpto the/wp-content/plugins/directory - Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress
- Go to ‘Settings’ > ‘XML Sitemap’
Reviews
I had to re-register on wordpress to review this plugin, simply because it’s worth it. By far the easiest sitemap I have used and for a small plugin very comprehensive in what it does. Whenever I create a new wordpress site I add one of the more ‘top rated’ sitemaps but forgot to do so this time and as a sitemap appeared anyway – (Didn’t realise the update of wordpresses own sitemap generator) I had no cause to check whether the sitemap and its controls were in place. But having a directory with paid listings and submission pages with contact details, I didn’t realise I had one big backdoor (Until I decided to check my sitemap and the links being produced), not just for the search engines but for anyone who wanted to use my site for free and use other peoples details to do it. Now that I have been able to take control of what my sitemap allows visitors or search engines to see I feel so much more at ease. Thank you for plugging the gap of wordpress and its so called ‘useful’ updates without really telling people the consequences.
This plugin really should be core to wordpress!
chunghao
February 20, 2024
Einach und klar aufgebaut. Super easy zum Einrichten.
As many already have written here: This is the badly missing user interface for the sitemap feature in Core.
Sometimes a custom post type or taxonomy is badly registered and has a sitemap, although there is no public facing page available or WP core is generating an author sitemap by default …
With this plugin, you can disable those unwanted sitemaps with one simple checkbox.
Additionally, you can enable the last modification date/time which is highly recommended (because crawler now can better plan their work). There is a ticket milestoned for WordPress 6.3 which is discussing this to be part of the core sitemap.
And it seems there is a feature planned for custom additions to “priority” and “change frequency”.
This would be worth a sixth star ??
As others have commented, it seems like this functionality should have been included in core WP when wp-sitemap.xml was integrated. In my case, it saved the time and effort having to find/add code to functions.php to exclude taxonomies. Thanks for the useful plugin!
Contributors & Developers
“WP Sitemaps Config” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.
Contributors
“WP Sitemaps Config” has been translated into 7 locales. Thank you to the translators for their contributions.
Translate “WP Sitemaps Config” into your language.
Interested in development?
Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.
Changelog
2.2.2
- improved strings for text translation
- Compatibility check with WordPress 6.6
2.2.1
- removed leftover debugging code
- Compatibility check with WordPress 6.4-6.5
2.2.0
- added option in the post metabox for the priority (thanks to @Hinjiriyo)
- added option in the post metabox for the change frequency (thanks to @Hinjiriyo)
- changed the default of the change frequency from ‘never’ to ‘weekly’ (inspired by @zodiac1978)
- Compatibility check with WordPress 6.3
2.1.1
- fixed issue with time format – improved conversion to ISO 8601 (reported by @zodiac1978)
- Compatibility check with WordPress 6.2 beta
2.1.0
- added support to exclude WooCommerce products
- fixed issue with time format – converted to ISO 8601 (reported by @armbreakersweden)
- Compatibility check with WordPress 6
2.0.4
- fixed issue with excluding pages because pages wouldn’t exclude anymore
2.0.3
- removed empty lines from post sitemap (reported by @gregslegs).
- changed filter to remove urls from post sitemap
2.0.2
- code improvement
- moved language files to GlotPress. So, please contribute as a translator to make WP Sitemaps Config available in more and more languages.
- Compatibility check with WordPress 5.9
2.0.1
- Compatibility check with WordPress 5.8
- Compatibility check with WordPress 5.7
- Compatibility check with WordPress 5.6.2
- New branding
2.0.0
- Added functions to exclude single posts and pages from the sitemaps
- Added sidebar on the settings pages of this plugin
- Added header images and icon on the WordPress plugin’s page
- Added post metadata removal during uninstalling this plugin
- Published on 2020-10-24
1.0.0
- Initial release at 2020-09-01