ActiveCampaignAEMBeehiivBigCommerceBloggerBrevoClickFunnelsConcrete CMSContentfulConvertKitCraft CMSCustomDev.toDrupalExpressionEngineGetResponseGhostGravHashnodeHubSpotInstapageJoomlaKenticoKlaviyoLeadpagesMagentoMailchimpMediumOctober CMSPrestaShopSanityShopifySilverstripeSitecoreSquarespaceStrapiSubstackTYPO3UmbracoUnbounceWebflowWixWordPressWP.com

XML Sitemaps

10-20 minBeginner

XML Sitemaps act as a roadmap for search engines, listing all your important pages. While WordPress 5.5+ has a basic one built-in, SEO plugins generate much better ones with image support and exclude controls.

Prerequisites

  • WordPress admin access
  • SEO Plugin (recommended over core sitemaps)
Easy Recommended

Using Yoast SEO (Recommended)

Generates robust sitemap_index.xml automatically handled by the plugin.

1

Enable Sitemaps

1

Go to Yoast SEO > Settings > Site Features

2

Scroll to "XML sitemaps"

3

Ensure the toggle is ON

4

Click "View the XML sitemap" to verify

2

Exclude Content Types

1

Go to Settings > Content Types

2

Toggle "Show in search results" to OFF for any type you want EXCLUDED from sitemap

3

Common exclusions: Media, Tags, Format Archives

Best Practices

Do

  • Submit your sitemap index to Google Search Console
  • Exclude "Thank You" pages, Admin pages, and thin content
  • Include images in your sitemap (SEO plugins do this automatically)
  • Check for errors in the GSC Sitemaps report

Don't

  • Manually edit a sitemap.xml file (let plugins handle it)
  • Include redirected (301) or missing (404) URLs
  • Worry if it takes days for Google to crawl it
  • Create a static sitemap file that never updates

Verification Checklist

  • Sitemap load at /sitemap_index.xml or /wp-sitemap.xml
  • Sitemap contains only status 200 (live) URLs
  • Noindex pages are NOT in the sitemap
  • Sitemap is submitted to GSC and Bing Webmaster Tools

Pro Tips

  • Break large sitemaps into chunks (Yoast does this automatically at 1,000 URLs)
  • Video sitemaps are crucial for video-heavy sites (requires Premium plugins usually)
  • If you block a page in robots.txt, remove it from the sitemap too

Common Issues & Fixes

Problem: Sitemap returns 404
Solution: Resave your Permalinks in Settings > Permalinks. This flushes rewrite rules.
Problem: Yoast Sitemap is blank
Solution: Check for plugin conflicts, or server caching (exclude sitemap_index.xml from cache).
Problem: Sitemap contains "author" archives I don't want
Solution: Go to Yoast SEO > Settings > Advanced > Author Archives and disable them.