XML Sitemaps

Description

The XML Sitemaps plugin for WordPress will automatically generate XML Sitemaps for your site and notify search engines when they’re updated.

Contrary to other plugins that generate sitemap files, this one will add a rewrite rule and store your cached sitemaps in the wp-content/sitemaps folder.

The XML Sitemaps plugin automatically assigns the rate of updates and the weight based on statistics collected on your site.

Pings occur automatically, on an hourly basis, if the sitemap file is updated.

Lastly, and contrary to the zillions of plugins that try to do the same as this one, this plugin will use the WP internals to determine the number of blog, category and tag pages on your site. This means it’ll play well with the likes of custom query string or Semiologic SEO.

Configuration

Starting with version 2.0 there is now the ability to control the inclusion or exclusion of date archives (years and months), author, category and tags pages in your sitemap.

Additionally specific pages can also be excluded by entering their page IDs.

Go to Settings->XML Sitemaps to update settings.

Help Me!

The Plugin’s Forum is the best place to report issues.

Installation

1. Upload the plugin folder to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory
2. Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress
3. The plugin will then guide you through the installation process if any manual steps are necessary

FAQ

Installation Instructions

1. Upload the plugin folder to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory
2. Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress
3. The plugin will then guide you through the installation process if any manual steps are necessary

The Sitemap isn’t getting generated

Actually, it is. But it’s not refreshed each time you save your posts and pages. Doing so would be far too resource intensive on large sites.

It’s generated only when explicitly requested by visiting domain.com/sitemap.xml, which is then cached in a physical file located in the /wp-content/sitemaps folder; until it needs to be refreshed once again.

Reviews

best of the best

salem80 March 26, 2018

I was only need simple sitemap.xml file and this plugin did it for me thanks for author for making our life less painful .

Simple, generates ONE sitemap.xml as expected

Alexis Wilke February 25, 2018

I tested several XML sitemap versions and they like all want to generate thousands of XML sitemaps. My site is never going to grow so much that a single .xml file wouldn’t be enough (you have plenty of room, really!) One important thing: I went to settings and removed absolutely everything except the “Include Custom Posts”. There is really no need to have archives in there. Google & Co. will find those pages, but they are not worth indexing anyway. As long as all your posts are indexed, you’ll be just fine as far as SEO is concerned. I tested 4 other plugins, this is my favorite so far.

Happy with the way the plugin works

O_Breda April 30, 2018

I am pleased with the functionality of the plugin. Thanks! I’ve been using this plugin for a few years. No problems whatsoever.

The only plugin that got me around a parsing error

grantmahy September 3, 2016

Great stuff — I was encountering a parsing error likely due to an open php tag somewhere in my theme and until I installed XML sitemaps no other sitemap plugins worked. Nice and simple to use and I like the way it stores a physical sitemap in a WP Folder. thx to the author

Good and simple.

Sky Bolt September 3, 2016

Works well and the code behind it is simple. I would like to contribute to this plugin. Please contact me about how I can get you my update that adds AMP pages.

Very easy to configure and effecive

SmartestReviews February 8, 2017

Thank you very much. I use it on my site SmartestReviews.com and it really helps me to define priorities and crawling frequency. Great plugin. Can also run with yoast seo. the advantage is that you can define your own priorities and frequency. with yoast sitemap generator you can’t.

Contributors & Developers

Changelog

3.0.1

• PHP 7.x compat

3.0

• Custom Posts now included in the sitemap w/ Setting to exclude
• Individual posts can be excluded now. Previously only pages could be
• Update urls for Google and Bing sitemap pinging
• WP 4.7.x compat

2.5

• Removed extra blank lines in stylesheet file that was causing issues on a few sites.
• WP 4.3 compat
• Tested against PHP 5.6

2.4

• Fixed settings being reset upon plugin activation message.
• WordPress 4.2 compat.

2.3.1

• Settings were not being preserved in some cases. Should be resolved now.

2.3

• New option to include author page in sitemap if they haven’t published a page or post.
• WordPress 4.1 compat.

2.2.1

• Fix PHP strict warning upon deactivating the plugin.

2.2

• The blog page is not added if the page is set in the Excluded Pages list and the blog page is not the Home Page.
• Multi-paged entries are no longer included in the sitemap. This can be re-enabled if define(‘xml_sitemaps_paged’, true); is set in wp-config

2.1

• Changing of the plugin Settings now will cause regeneration of the sitemap
• Fix ‘Strict Standards: Non-static method’ warning messages when in debug mode
• WordPress 4.0 compatibility

2.0.3

• Use more full proof WP version check to alter plugin behavior instead of relying on $wp_version constant.

2.0.2

• Reactivate sitemap logic upon WP upgrade

2.0.1

• Fix localization

2.0

• NEW Admin Settings
• Optionally include/exclude archive, author, category and tag pages from the sitemap
• Option to exclude individual pages
• Ability to generate sitemap for mobile-only sites in mobile sitemap format.
• WP 3.9 Compat

1.12

• Too many author pages entries were being generated
• Code refactoring

1.11.1

• Replaced deprecated PHP 5.3 function call
• WP 3.8 compat

1.11

• Fix incorrect admin message regarding Privacy/Search Engine Visibility Settings changed in WP 3.5

1.10

• No longer add url to blog page if no posts have been published
• Author links now check that author has at least 1 post or page
• WP 3.7 compat

1.9

• WP 3.6 compat
• PHP 5.4 compat

1.8.1

• Fix assigning the return value of new by reference warning message

1.8

• Sitemap now includes author pages in file

1.7.1

• Rebuild sitemap if post is moved to trash

1.7

• WP 3.5 compat
• Updated for Bing ping url and removed yahoo ping as it has been discontinued

1.6.2

• WP 3.0 compat

1.6.1

• Improve safe_mode and open_basedir handling

1.6

• WPMU compat
• Improve memcached support
• Handle custom content dir properly
• Add a filter so other plugins can attach pages

1.5

• Fix an ugly typo that prevented the plugin from working in some circumstances

1.4.1

• Harden a file permission check

1.4

• Improve clean-up procedure
• Fix Paging
• Ping throttling tweaks: up to once every 10 minutes

1.3

• Apply permalink filters on post and page links
• Fix a conflict with themes and plugins that mess around with a blog’s privacy settings on 404 errors

1.2

• Drop attachments from the sitemap