soundfeelings

ok. I’ve been loyal to this plugin for a very long time and I appreciate how it works and the care the that @auctollo put into making it work correctly. But ever since the plugin was taken over by another company, it seems that they have neglected it and that is sad. I’ve attempted to communicate with them but they appear to be non-responsive.

So anyway, after much research, comparing almost 10 other sitemap plugins, I found one that offers very similar features:
https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/companion-sitemap-generator/

Also, to make sure any 3rd party sitemap plugin works, I’ve learned that since WordPress 5.5 we have to DEACTIVATE the “built-in” sitemap generator.
There is a plugin for that:
https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/disable-wp-sitemaps/

Or I’ve also learned that you can add the following code to your functions.php file:

// removing built in wordpress sitemap
add_filter( ‘wp_sitemaps_enabled’, ‘__return_false’ );

Not clear if someone is aware of this issue and if they are fixing it. I have to manually update 50 sites and delete the home page exclusion. How is this possible? Should we switch to another plugin?

Great help. Thank you!!

Thank you for the great info. I hadn’t realized that you had responded as I may have missed the notification. I will try what you said.

As far as @tommckernan ‘s point about checking the box: “Discourage search engines from indexing this site,” I think this affects ALL the pages on the site and I wouldn’t want to do that.

@lindaloveswordpress, I haven’t made any changes yet. I was waiting for a response from the plugin creator. Also, I think this is just google being hypersensitive because it is actually nice to have a user-friendly sitemap and possibly some search engines might use that one, I suspect. So for now, I’m inclined to just ignore the whole thing.

I wonder if the html version of the page is just for user-viewing but not necessary for the functionality of the program because the sitemap.xml is the one that google actually needs to see? So maybe the easiest thing is to just UNCHECK the box: “Include sitemap in HTML format” in the settings panel?

One more point. I have the box checked in the settings: “Include sitemap in HTML format.” So maybe this is a NON ISSUE? because it seems that the sitemap.html is the page that is not being “indexed” for search engines but does that mean that google would not see the content? Because it is actually “noindex, follow” which means that the links in the page WOULD be followed. So maybe it is all ok?

wow. Great work MBayDesign! I’m wary of making these types of adjustments. I did find out how to contact the plugin creator. Go to https://www.arnebrachhold.de/ and click on “Impressum” and you will see the email to contact Arne Brachhold in Germany. Maybe if we all write to him it would help?

Seems like ALL of my wordpress sites using the Google XML sitemaps plugin now have this error! I don’t know how to contact the creator of the plugin. Don’t know if she is monitoring this board.

Fantastic! Thank you!