Ever published a new blog post, only to find it’s nowhere on Google days later? That usually happens because search engines haven’t discovered your content yet. A sitemap fixes exactly that.
The good news is that creating a sitemap in WordPress is easy. You can use the built-in sitemap WordPress generates automatically, or get a more powerful version from an SEO plugin.
In this guide, we’ll walk you through both options and show you how to submit your sitemap to search engines without touching any code.
What Is a WordPress Sitemap?
A WordPress sitemap is a file that lists all pages, posts, and other content on your site, so search engines can discover and index everything more efficiently.
There are a few different types of sitemaps in WordPress:
- XML sitemap: The most common type, built for search engines like Google and Bing rather than human visitors. WordPress has this built-in.
- HTML sitemap: A clickable page that helps visitors (and search engines) navigate your content.
- RSS/Atom sitemap: A feed that highlights your most recently published or updated posts.
- Image sitemap: Helps search engines find and index the images on your site.
- Video sitemap: Helps your video content appear in video search results.
- News sitemap: For news publishers who want their articles indexed quickly in Google News.
- Multilingual sitemap: Points search engines to the right language version of a page for each region.
Most beginners only need an XML sitemap to get started. The other types become more useful as your site grows or if you publish specific content like videos or news articles.
How to Create a Sitemap in WordPress
WordPress comes with a basic sitemap built in, so you don’t need a plugin to get started. It was added in WordPress 5.5, and it works automatically without any setup on your part.
To find your default WordPress sitemap, simply add /wp-sitemap.xml to the end of your website’s URL.
For example, if your site is https://www.example.com, your sitemap will be at https://www.example.com/wp-sitemap.xml.
When you visit that URL, you’ll see a sitemap index file that links out to separate sitemaps for your posts, pages, categories, tags, and other content types.
The built-in sitemap covers the basics. As your site grows, though, you may run into a few limits:
- No image or video sitemap support. Media content won’t be included, which means search engines may miss it.
- No news sitemap. If you run a news site, the default sitemap won’t meet Google News requirements.
- No HTML sitemap. There’s no visitor-friendly version of your sitemap built in.
- Limited control over what’s included. You can’t easily exclude specific pages, posts, or content types without writing custom code.
- No Google Search Console integration. You’ll need to manually submit the sitemap URL yourself with no guidance from within WordPress.
This is why we recommend most website owners to use an SEO plugin and generate a more advanced sitemap. Here’s how to set one up:
- How to Setup an Advanced WordPress Sitemap
- Setup a Video Sitemap in WordPress
- Setup a News Sitemap in WordPress
- Setup an RSS Sitemap in WordPress
- Setup an HTML Sitemap in WordPress
- Setup a Multilingual Sitemap in WordPress
- Submit Your XML Sitemap to Search Engines
- Frequently Asked Questions About WordPress Sitemaps
How to Setup an Advanced WordPress Sitemap
An SEO plugin gives you a more advanced XML sitemap than the default WordPress sitemap. You control exactly what’s included, such as post types and the number of included links.
You don’t need a paid plugin to get started. Almost every popular WordPress SEO plugin generates an XML sitemap in their free version. We’ll show you how to use All in One SEO (AIOSEO) because it’s what we use at WPBeginner.
Go ahead and install and activate the free AIOSEO plugin.
Alternatively, you can install the free Yoast or Rank Math plugin. If you need help, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin. It runs a quick setup wizard the first time, and the defaults are fine to get going.
Head to All in One SEO » Sitemaps and make sure you’re in the ‘General Sitemap’ tab. You should see the ‘Enable Sitemap’ toggle switched on. If it isn’t, turn it on now.
Scroll down to the ‘Sitemap Settings’ section. Under ‘Post Types,’ toggle on the content types you want indexed, such as posts, pages, and any custom post types.
Leave off anything that isn’t useful in search, like private or utility pages.
In the ‘Taxonomies’ section below, it makes sense to include your categories, while tags are optional. We also recommend leaving date-based archive and author pages turned off, since they tend to be thin content that can dilute your sitemap in Google’s eyes.
AIOSEO also adds your images to this XML sitemap automatically, so you don’t need a separate image sitemap. If you’d rather leave images out, you can turn it off under the sitemap’s Advanced Settings.
When you’re done, click ‘Save Changes.’ Your XML sitemap is now live, and you can view it anytime with the ‘Open Sitemap’ link at the top of the page.
Setup a Video Sitemap in WordPress
A video sitemap helps search engines find and understand the video content on your site. Without one, your videos may not appear in video search results or Google’s video carousel.
Important: Video Sitemap is available on AIOSEO’s Pro plan and above. If you’re on the free or Basic plan, then you can skip this step or upgrade to Pro if you need video indexing support.
To enable it, switch to the ‘Video Sitemap’ tab at the top of the page and toggle on ‘Enable Sitemap.’
Now, you’ll see options to control which content is included:
- Post Types. Select the post types that contain video content on your site. For most sites, this will be posts and pages, but you can also include custom post types if you host videos in a specific section of your site.
- Taxonomies. You can choose whether to include taxonomy pages that feature video content as well.
AIOSEO’s video sitemap works best with videos embedded from a supported host like YouTube or Vimeo. If yours are hosted elsewhere or hard for search engines to detect, you may need to add schema markup to help Google understand them.
Setup a News Sitemap in WordPress
A news sitemap is designed specifically for websites that publish news articles. It tells Google News about your latest content so it can be considered for inclusion in Google’s news search results and the Top Stories section.
A news sitemap only includes articles published within the last 48 hours. Google News is focused on fresh, timely content, so older articles won’t appear in this sitemap. Your regular XML sitemap handles the indexing of your older content.
To set up the News sitemap in AIOSEO, go to the ‘News Sitemap’ tab at the top of the page and turn on the ‘Enable Sitemap’ toggle.
Then you can configure these settings:
- Publication name. Enter the name of your news publication exactly as you want it to appear in Google News. This should match the name you used when registering your site with Google News.
- Post Types. Select which post types contain your news articles. Most news sites will choose ‘Posts’, but if you use a custom post type for news content, you can select that here instead.
Note: If you run a news site, make sure it meets Google News’s content policies before submitting a news sitemap. Google has specific guidelines around original reporting, authorship, and publication frequency that your site will need to follow to be considered for Google News inclusion.
Setup an RSS Sitemap in WordPress
An RSS sitemap works differently from an XML sitemap. Instead of listing all your content at once, it focuses on your most recently published or updated posts from your RSS feed. That gives search engines a lightweight way to spot your newest content, although it won’t guarantee faster indexing.
To set it up, switch to the ‘RSS Sitemap’ tab at the top of the page in your AIOSEO settings. Click the ‘Enable Sitemap’ toggle to turn the RSS sitemap on if it isn’t already active.
Here, there are a couple of simple options to configure:
- Number of posts. This setting controls how many of your most recent posts are listed in the RSS sitemap. AIOSEO sets a default number, but you can adjust it based on how frequently you publish new content.
- Post Types. Choose which content types are included in your RSS sitemap. For most sites, you’ll want to include posts, but you can also add pages or custom post types.
Setup an HTML Sitemap in WordPress
An HTML sitemap (sometimes called a visual sitemap) is a clickable page built for your visitors, not just search engines. It is handy on larger sites where content is hard to find through the menu.
To activate the HTML sitemap feature, go to the ‘HTML Sitemap’ tab at the top of the page and turn on the ‘Enable Sitemap’ toggle.
Once enabled, you’ll see several options to customize how your HTML sitemap looks and works:
- Sitemap page. AIOSEO can automatically create a dedicated page for your HTML sitemap, or you can choose an existing page on your site to display it.
- Post Types. Select which content types you want to appear in the sitemap, such as posts and pages.
- Taxonomies. Choose whether to include categories, tags, or other taxonomy archives in the sitemap.
- Sort order. Control how your content is organized in the sitemap, such as by publication date, title, or last modified date.
- Compact archives. This option groups older content by month or year, which keeps the sitemap page from becoming too long on sites with a large archive.
Setup a Multilingual Sitemap in WordPress
If your WordPress site publishes in more than one language, then a multilingual sitemap helps search engines serve the right version to each region’s audience.
Most of this is handled by your translation plugin, not your SEO plugin. Translation plugins like Universally, WPML, and Polylang, add the hreflang tags and organize your language versions.
AIOSEO, Yoast SEO, and Rank Math pick these up automatically, so your translated pages appear in your sitemap with nothing extra to configure.
Submit Your XML Sitemap to Search Engines
Search engines are quite good at finding a sitemap on their own, especially once your SEO plugin adds it to your site’s robots.txt file. However, we recommend that you submit the sitemap manually to ensure that search engines can find it.
First, let’s find your sitemap URL so you can submit it to Google or Bing. Go to All in One SEO » Sitemaps and click ‘Open Sitemap’ to view it.
Keep this tab open so you can copy the URL in the next steps.
Or, you can access it directly by typing your website address followed by /sitemap.xml. For example: https://www.example.com/sitemap.xml.
For Yoast SEO and Rank Math, it’s usually yoursite.com/sitemap_index.xml. You can confirm your exact sitemap URL by visiting the sitemap settings page in whichever plugin you’re using.
Submit Your Sitemap to Google
For Google, you will submit your sitemap from your Google Search Console account.
If you haven’t set up Google Search Console yet, then follow our guide on how to add your WordPress site to Google Search Console to create your account, verify ownership, and connect it to WordPress.
One detail to get right during setup: Google treats HTTP and HTTPS as different sites, and https://www.example.com is different from https://example.com. Use the exact URL from your WordPress Settings » General page in the ‘Site Address’ field.
Once Search Console is connected, go back to your Google Search Console dashboard and click ‘Sitemaps’ in the left menu.
Then, paste your sitemap URL into the ‘Add new sitemap’ section and click ‘Submit.’
Google will now regularly check your sitemap to discover new and updated content on your site. We recommend checking back on this page after a day or two to make sure Google has processed your sitemap successfully.
You should see your sitemap listed with a status confirming Google has processed it. If it flags errors, click them for details (often just a formatting issue Google resolves on its own).
Back in the AIOSEO Sitemaps settings, you’ll also see a notification that says, “Your site is connected directly to Google Search Console and your sitemaps are in sync.”
Submit Your Sitemap to Bing
Just like Google, Bing has its own webmaster tool for submitting your sitemap. It’s worth doing too, since Bing also powers other search platforms like DuckDuckGo.
First, head over to Bing Webmaster Tools and sign in with a free Microsoft account. Then add your site and verify that you own it. For the full walkthrough, see our guide on how to add your website to Bing Webmaster Tools.
Once your site is verified, open your website property and click ‘Sitemaps’ in the left-hand menu.
Next, click the ‘Submit Sitemap’ button. This opens a popup where you can enter your full sitemap URL.
Paste your full sitemap URL, for example https://www.yoursite.com/sitemap.xml
Then, click ‘Submit’ to send it to Bing.
Bing will process your sitemap and show the results in the ‘Sitemaps’ section, including how many URLs it discovered and whether there were any issues.
Frequently Asked Questions About WordPress Sitemaps
Do I need a sitemap if my WordPress site is small?
Yes, even small WordPress sites benefit from having a sitemap. While search engines can often find and crawl small sites through links alone, a sitemap makes sure that every page gets discovered, including newer content that hasn’t had time to build up internal links yet.
How often does my sitemap update?
Your sitemap updates automatically every time you publish, update, or delete content on your site. If you’re using an SEO plugin like AIOSEO, Yoast SEO, or Rank Math, then this happens in the background without you needing to do anything. Your sitemap will always reflect the current state of your site as long as your plugin is active and configured correctly.
Can I have more than one sitemap?
Yes, you can have multiple sitemaps on your WordPress site, and in most cases you will. A sitemap index file acts as a master list that points to separate sitemaps for different content types, for example, one sitemap for posts, one for pages, and one for videos.
Does having a sitemap guarantee my content will rank in Google?
No, having a sitemap does not guarantee your content will rank in Google. A sitemap helps search engines discover and index your content, but ranking depends on many other factors like content quality, backlinks, and overall site authority.
What should I do if Google shows errors in my sitemap?
If Google Search Console shows errors in your sitemap, start by clicking on the error to get more details about what’s causing it. Common fixes include:
- Removing noindex pages from your sitemap
- Updating or redirecting broken URLs that return 404 errors
- Making sure your robots.txt file isn’t blocking pages that are listed in your sitemap
Once you’ve made your fixes, you can request Google to reprocess your sitemap directly from the Sitemaps page in Search Console.
Do I need to resubmit my sitemap every time I publish new content?
No, you don’t need to resubmit your sitemap every time you publish new content. Once you’ve submitted your sitemap to Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools, both search engines will revisit it regularly on their own.
How to disable the default WordPress sitemap?
When popular plugins like AIOSEO, Yoast, or RankMath are active, they automatically switch off the default WordPress sitemap at /wp-sitemap.xml and generates their own advanced sitemap instead. So you won’t end up running two competing sitemaps.
We hope this article helped you learn about XML sitemaps and how to create an XML sitemap for your WordPress site. Next, you may also want to read our ultimate WordPress SEO guide or learn how to ask Google to recrawl URLs of your WordPress site.
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
Bikramjit Singh
Thank You! These small things such as issue when needed urgently.Thanks a lot for the article.
Saikot Hc
Thanks bro because share this plugin.
marshall
thanks a ton!!! its awesomely written
Anatoly Khalizev
Thank you very much for such delailed explanation. It is very useful!
Adrian
My Site Map URL returns a 404 :/ anyone knows why this is? I already followed the steps to get it
Santhosh Veer
how to edit this sitemap?
WPBeginner Staff
You will have to verify your owner ship of the site by adding a meta tag or uploading a file to your web server.
Shamim Gypsy
Thanks for your reply. Will it harmful for the site if I verify the site with new email ID?
Grayson Carter
Its not harmful to the site from an SEO perspective, however, if your boss has already verified the site under his account, you’ll loose all historical data under his account. The best solution would be for him to add you as an administrator for that site in GWT and then you can see all the historical data he’s collected and you can still handle submitting a site map
Shamim Gypsy
My boss already have a webmaster account. He did not add xml site map. But now I want to add site map without his webmaster account. that means I want to add site map with my email webmaster account. Is it possible to use double webmaster account for one site?
Tholi
How do I make my site maps appear on one page under my domain name?
Taylor Thompson
Great post! Thank you for all of the helpful information
However, I still have a few questions. Why does Google index only some of the pages you submit with a sitemap? Also, I see that you have images indexed. I have numerous images on my site, and none of them were indexed. Is there a separate process to index images?
Thank you!
Yatin
I have uploaded sitemap_index.xml on webmaster. My first blog was seen on the google search. But my other posts are not getting indexed. What is the reason behind it? Do we need to add post-sitemap.xml or category-sitemap.xml individually then?
sudan
do i need to submit sitemap offten on google webmaster tool ? becuase my new post still not count
WPBeginner Staff
No you don’t need to.
WPBeginner Staff
Yes.
nazifa mazni
if I already setup xml sitemap from wordpress seo yoast. do I need uninstall plugin Dagon Design Sitemap Generator, google sitemap and google xml sitemap?
Lencho
followed your instructions and when I clicked on the “You can find your XML Sitemap here: XML Sitemap” it took me to this error mesage:
“Not Found
Sorry, but the page you were trying to view does not exist.
It looks like this was the result of either:
a mistyped address
an out-of-date link”
Now what?
Thanks
KC Wong
I follow the steps as per video, when click “xml sitemap”, it shows 404 rather than the list. How can I improve it?
Geoff
In the Yoast SEO plugin settings for XML sitemaps, untick the box for “Check this box to enable XML sitemap functionality.”, SAVE, then tick the box and SAVE again. This got everything working for me after much reading and not finding any answers. Many people seem to be having this issue so I hope this helps someone.
calmberay141182
thanks
Edwin Juma
Thanks alot! my new site is now working well.
D Donaldson
Helped me more than anything I have found in the very difficult endeavor of selfing a site. Thank you. Owe you one.
Ankit Jha
I want to edit the XML file created by SEO by Yoast Plugin. Where can I find the file?
Walter Mrowczynski
Pretty sure any change you make will be overwritten whenever you make a new page/post.
TheRookieUser
Thank you! I have a new site and your tips really works well for me
Have a great day!
Keith Davis
Thanks guys
I’m just looking at the Yoast SEO plugin and I’m checking out info on XML sitemaps.
As ever you guys nail it.
Marlon Buenaventura
Hi! My homepage title duplicates, what was the reason behind it? How can I fix the error? Please help! Thanks!
susielindau
Does this work for .com sites? if not, what can I do to make my site easy to crawl?
Max
Very good . I love this. Helpful.
Thanks from Thailand.
Tina
Thank you for this article. I had just assumed the sitemap was pulled once I verified my site. Great article & thanks for teaching me. You’re my #1 stop to find out information.
micheal
Nice post. Was able to set my sitemap in seconds thanks to your wonderful tutorial.
Dennis West
Yoast WordPress SEO: XML Sitemaps
I am getting an error when I click on the XML Sitemap button
—-
Not Found
The requested URL /sitemap_index.xml was not found on this server.
Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.
Apache/2.2.24 (Unix) mod_hive/3.6 mod_ssl/2.2.24 OpenSSL/0.9.8e-fips-rhel5 mod_auth_passthrough/2.1 mod_bwlimited/1.4 FrontPage/5.0.2.2635 mod_jk/1.2.35 Server at designresidential.biz Port 80
Katrina Cliffe
I am also getting this error? Did you manage to fix it?
Jane Barlow
Wish I’d have found this hours and hours ago. My site is now validated thanks to your easy to follow guidelines.
Most appreciated with heartfelt thanks.
Ian
Great article. Thank you!
It’s taken me ages until now, but up and running.
Quizvook
Awesome post,i created my site sitemap using this method thanks a lot for sharing Syed Balkhi.
mike jefferies
Used Yoast WP SEO, it took time but pleased to say succeeded, which I put down to WP4B well explained “idiots guide” (no disrespect to anyone..merely applies to me). Many thanks guys, you haven’t failed yet.
wajid khan
Hi, great article about sitemaps. Mind me asking that if i am using a plugin like seo by yoast, which creates multiple sitemaps how can i achieve what you have mentioned above?
WPBeginner Support
In this article we did show how to do this using WordPress SEO plugin. However, if you are using some other plugin to generate sitemaps. Then make sure your sitemaps are publicly accessible and then submit the sitemap URL in Google Webmaster Tools.
Admin
Larry Woods
Good article. Too bad Yoast doesn’t generate a sitemap on my site! And, judging from the number of complains on the WP forum there are others that are having the same problem. The frustrating thing is that when you press the “XML Sitemap” button it displays a sitemap. It just doesn’t create it.
Mauritz Mostert
A valid statement Larry. I am sorry you didn’t get an answer because I have been puzzling about exactly what you refer to. When I click on the “XML Sitemap” button in Yoast I get nothing! Only a blank page.
I have 24 Posts and 62 pages in just under a year, all submitted to Google myself. I have submitted my sitemap five times for almost a year to Google Webmaster Tools and the result is still 7 submitted and 5 indexed. I can’t understand how that works?
I don’t even have a sitemap displayed, never mind created by Yoast. There is no way to cross-reference Yoast to see if the job is indeed done or not… sad.
Reyansh
once again excellent article.
falling in love with wpbeginner.:)
Avinash
Hi,
Google webmaster tools showing error as on sitemp being the sitemap is a html.
Works fine on my 2nd site, but not on the 1st site.
I’ve tried suggestion given on Yoast.com about adding the sitemap to the exclusion list on using W3Total Cache plugin. Error still persists.
Any other suggestion would be helpful.
Jennifer Ebeling
Awesome post! Thank you!
Andy Peck
What a brilliantly clear article – very easy to use and run through. many thanks
Chris Lovie-Tyler
Thanks, this was helpful to me. Yoast’s Wordpress SEO is a great plugin.
Abdullah Abduragmaan
Please can you advise if it is possible to stop non-search engines from accessing the site map?
OR if one can change the path of the files or something. I am concerned scrapers will get access to the sitemap.
Editorial Staff
Not unless you modify the plugin. Scrapers will scrape your content regardless. They don’t need RSS for that.
Admin
Michael Dimas
NICE POST !!! (y)
Anshar
If i install wordpress in the directory (not in the root) ex. http://www.mydomain.com/blog/
where is the place to submit the sitemap page? after domain like mydomain.com/sitemap.xml or after the directory where i install wordpress on it, like mydomain.com/blog/sitemap.xml
Editorial Staff
it will be in yourdomain.com/blog/sitemap.xml
Admin
Rose
Hi
I am kind of new. 2 questions to ask
1. How frequent should we submit our sitemap, is it necessary to submit each we created a new post.
2. do we need to submit sitemaps all including those related to categories, tags, pages number or just purely the blog posts?
Thanks
Editorial Staff
You only submit your sitemap once. After that your sitemap does the job of updating search engines
Admin
Rose
Thanks for the enlightment
MJ
It appears that Editorial Staff is busy somewhere…..
MJ
Hi,
With reference to my previous comment can you please answer my query. When i type my site name in Google, it shows the last update as 3 or 4 days old. I tried different setting of Yoast Wordpress SEO plugin but i couldnt’ find anything that could resolve it.
I am sceptical that my posts are not reaching to Google on time. I check the sitemap and found that ‘Post Priority’ of all the posts as ‘60%’. Can it be changed to 100% without manually editing it from “Yoast admin area in Post”? Is this priority factor actually is the reason behind outdated update in Google Search result as mentioned above…?
MJ
I am using WP SEO by Yoast but interestingly my site map vanishes from the Google Webmaster Dashboard and it starts showing ‘0’ URL submitted. When i click on this section to go into detail, i find “/sitemap_index.xml” as “Pending”.
It happens most of the time in a week and i have to resubmit it again and again. What is the solution to this?
Secondly when i search my site in Google, it shows updated time as 2 or 3 or sometimes 4 days ago whereas, the site is updated every day. This is all happening since i have installed WP SEO by Yoast.
Yoast does not respond to such queries, i thought i would get a solution here….
Nikunj
Thanks for enlighten us I want to ask one question that We should include our categories in sitemap or Posts in sitemap which one should be at higher priority POST or CATEGORY ? plz tell
Editorial Staff
WordPress SEO by Yoast gives you the option to choose whether you want to add categories, tags, other taxonomies in your sitemap or not. We have our categories in the sitemap. Posts should always have a higher priority over the archive pages just because most folks usually land on your single post pages rather than archive pages.
Admin
David
Thank you, that was a useful post. I’ve been wondering if it’s necessary to post Yoast’s sitemap to the WT area.
Editorial Staff
It’s not necessary, but it will help you see if there are any errors and such.
Admin
David
So does a bot know to look for that map? Or is Yoast’s plugin actually submitting it anyway?
Editorial Staff
To get the best results and confirmation that the bot is actually seeing your sitemap, you should submit the sitemap in Google.
Keith Davis
Hi Syed
I submit a sitemap to Google via Webmaster tools and my sitemap is a simple .txt file.
Each time I write a post I add it to the sitemap and resubmit.
Only takes two minutes and it’s part of the SEO I carry out for each post / page.
Would I be better off going with an XML sitemap?
Travis Shak
Hey Keith,
You definitely would be better off using an XML sitemap. Its a no brainier. With the Yoast SEO plugin, your sitemaps will be automatically generated which leaves more time to work on the important things.
Editorial Staff
Agreed
Admin
Keith Davis
Just getting round to using the Yoast SEO plugin.
Umer Rock
I understood Sitemap but facing a strange issue with wp seo by yoast plugin, when we go for scan our website with any seo online tool, in report show this sitemap.xml not found blah blah,
because WP seo by yoast make like domain.com / post_sitemap.xml etc. any solution..
Editorial Staff
Those SEO tools don’t know any better.
Admin
Gautam Doddamani
exactly those seo tools are taking sitemap.xml as the url and not post_sitemap….since yoast maintains a wide variety of sitemaps such as for video, pages, categories and tags…we get the post sitemap url for posts!!