Are you wondering what is an XML sitemap, and how to add it to your WordPress website?
An XML sitemap helps search engines easily navigate through your website content. It gives them a list of all your content in a machine-readable format.
Unlike a regular sitemap that is made for people, an XML sitemap is not typically visible to your website visitors.
In this article, we will explain what is an XML sitemap, and how to easily create a sitemap in WordPress.
What is an XML Sitemap?
An XML sitemap is a file that lists of all your website content in an XML format, so search engines like Google can easily discover and index your content.
Back in the early 2000s, government websites used to have a link on their main pages, titled “Sitemap”. This page usually contained a list of all the pages on that website.
While some websites still have HTML sitemaps today, overall the usage of sitemaps have evolved.
Today sitemaps are published in an XML format instead of HTML, and their target audience is search engines and not people.
Basically, an XML sitemap is a way for website owners to tell search engines about all the pages that exist on their website.
It also tells search engines which links on your website are more important than others, and how frequently you update your website.
While XML sitemaps will not boost your search engine rankings, they allow search engines to better crawl your website. This means they can find more content and start showing it in search results thus resulting in higher rankings sometimes.
Why You Need an XML Sitemap?
Sitemaps are extremely important from a search engine optimization (SEO) point of view.
Simply adding a sitemap does not affect search rankings. However, if there is a page on your site that is not indexed, then sitemap provides you a way to let search engines know about that page.
Sitemaps are extremely useful for when you first start a blog or create a new website because most new websites don’t have any backlinks. This makes it harder for search engines to discover all of their content.
This is why search engines like Google and Bing allow new website owners to submit a sitemap in their webmaster tools. This allows their search engine bots to easily discover and index your content (more on this later).
Sitemaps are equally as important for established popular websites as well. They allow you to highlight which part of your websites are more important, which parts are more frequently updated, etc, so search engines can visit and index your content accordingly.
This helps improve the overall visibility of your website in search engine rankings.
How to create a Sitemap in WordPress?
There are several ways to create an XML sitemap in WordPress. We will show you two popular methods to create an XML sitemap in WordPress, and you can choose one that works best for you.
Method 1. Creating an XML Sitemap in WordPress using Yoast SEO
The easiest way to create an XML sitemap in WordPress is by using the Yoast SEO plugin.
It is the best WordPress SEO plugin on the market offering you a comprehensive set of tools to optimize your blog posts for SEO.
First, you need to install and activate the Yoast SEO plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, go to SEO » General page and switch to the ‘Features’ tab. From here, you need to scroll down to the ‘XML Sitemap’ option and make sure that it is turned on.
Next, click on the save changes button to store your changes.
To verify that Yoast SEO has created an XML Sitemap, you can click on the question mark icon next to the XML Sitemap option on the page.
After that, click on the ‘See the XML Sitemap’ link to view your live XML sitemap generated by Yoast SEO.
You can also find your XML sitemap by simply adding sitemap_index.xml at the end of your website address. For example:
https://www.example.com/sitemap_index.xml
Yoast SEO creates multiple sitemaps for different types of content. By default, it will generate sitemaps for posts, pages, author, and categories.
If you run an online store using WooCommerce, then it will also generate a sitemap for your products.
However, when it comes to submitting the sitemap to search engines, you’ll only need to submit the main sitemap index file. We’ll show you how to do that later in this article.
Method 2. Creating an XML Sitemap in WordPress using Google XML Sitemaps Plugin
This method is recommended for users who don’t want to use Yoast SEO’s XML Sitemaps feature.
First, thing you need to do is install and activate the Google XML Sitemaps plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, the plugin automatically generates an XML Sitemap for your website. You can view it by simply adding sitemap.xml to your website’s address. For example:
https://www.example.com/sitemap.xml
The plugin works out of the box for most blogs and business websites. However, you still need to review plugin settings to make sure that you are not missing anything.
Simply, go to Settings » XML-Sitemap page to configure plugin.
At the top, the plugin will give you status information. It will notify you if the plugin is unable to ping any search engine.
You can review the basic options where you can disable the plugin from notifying search engines, increase PHP memory limit, and more. The default settings would work for most WordPress hosting environments.
Next, you’ll see the additional pages section. From here you can manually add pages to your XML sitemap. This comes in handy if your website has static HTML pages not created by the WordPress CMS.
After that, you can adjust how the plugin assigns priority to posts. By default, it uses the number of comments to calculate a post’s priority.
The next two sections of the plugin’s settings page allow you to include and exclude content from your WordPress sitemap. For example, if you run an eCommerce store, then you would want to include the ‘Products’ content type to your sitemap.
After that, you can adjust the frequency and priority of your sitemap contents. Changing these values are considered as a hint by search engines, and they may choose to follow or ignore these tags based on their criteria.
Finally, don’t forget to click on the ‘Update Options’ button to save your changes.
How to Tell Search Engines About Sitemaps?
Search engines are quite smart in finding a sitemap. Whenever you publish new content, a ping is sent to Google and Bing to inform them about changes in your sitemap.
However, we recommend that you submit the sitemap manually to ensure that search engines can find it.
Submitting Your XML Sitemap to Google
Google Search Console is a free tool offered by Google to help website owners monitor and maintain their site’s presence in Google search results.
Adding your sitemap to Google Search Console helps it quickly discover your content even if your website is brand new.
First, you need to visit the Google Search Console website and sign up for an account.
After that, you will be asked to select a property type. You can choose a domain or a URL prefix. We recommend choosing URL prefix as it is easier to setup.
Enter your website’s URL and then click on the continue button.
Next, you will be asked to verify ownership of the website. You will see multiple methods to do that, we recommend using the HTML tag method.
Simply copy the code on the screen and then go to the admin area of your WordPress website.
From here, you need to install and activate the Insert Headers and Footers plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, you need to visit Settings » Insert Headers and Footers page and add the code you copied earlier in the ‘Scripts in Header’ box.
Don’t forget to click on the save button to store your changes.
Now, switch back to the Google Search Console tab and click on the ‘Verify’ button.
Google will check for verification code on your site and then add it to your Google Search Console account.
Note: if the verification is unsuccessful, then please make sure to clear your cache and then try again.
Now that you have added your website, let’s add your XML sitemap as well.
From your account dashboard, you need to click on the Sitemaps from the left column.
After that, you need to add the last part of your sitemap URL under the ‘Add new sitemap’ section and click the Submit button.
Google will now add your sitemap URL to your Google Search Console.
It will take Google some time to crawl your website. After a while, you would be able to see basic sitemap stats.
This information includes the number of links Google found in your sitemap, how many of them got indexed, a ratio of images to web pages, and more.
Submitting Your XML Sitemap to Bing
Similar to Google Search Console, Bing also offers Bing Webmaster Tools to help website owners monitor their website in the Bing search engine.
To add your sitemap to Bing, you need to visit the Bing Webmaster Tools website and sign up for an account. Once you have signed up, you can add your website under the ‘Add new site’ section.
On the next screen, you will be asked to enter your website details including the sitemap URL.
Click on the Submit button to continue.
Bing will now ask you to verify the ownership of your website and will show you several methods to do that.
We recommend using the Meta tag method. Simply copy the meta tag line from the page and paste it on a blank text file on your computer.
Now go to your WordPress website and install and activate the Insert Headers and Footers plugin to your website.
Upon activation, you need to visit Settings » Insert Headers and Footers page and add the code you copied earlier in the ‘Scripts in header’ box.
Don’t forget to click on the Save button to store your changes.
How to Utilize XML Sitemaps for Your Website?
Now that you have submitted the XML sitemap to Google, let’s take a look at how to utilize it for your website.
First, you need to keep in mind that the XML sitemap does not improve your search rankings. However, it does help search engines find content, adjust crawl rate, and improve your website’s visibility in search engines.
You need to keep an eye on your sitemap stats in Google Search Console. It can show you crawl errors and the pages excluded from search coverage.
Below the charts, you can click on the tables to view actual URLs excluded or not indexed by Google.
Normally, Google may decide to skip duplicate content, pages with no content or very little content, and pages excluded by your website’s robots.txt file or meta tags.
However, if you have an unusually high number of excluded pages, then you may want to check your SEO plugin settings to make sure that you are not blocking any content.
We hope this article helped answer all your questions about XML sitemaps and how to create an XML sitemap for your WordPress site. You may also want to see our guide on how to quickly increase your website traffic with these actionable tips.
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Thank You! These small things such as issue when needed urgently.Thanks a lot for the article.
Thanks bro because share this plugin.
thanks a ton!!! its awesomely written
Thank you very much for such delailed explanation. It is very useful!
My Site Map URL returns a 404 :/ anyone knows why this is? I already followed the steps to get it
how to edit this sitemap?
You will have to verify your owner ship of the site by adding a meta tag or uploading a file to your web server.
Thanks for your reply. Will it harmful for the site if I verify the site with new email ID?
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
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?
How do I make my site maps appear on one page under my domain name?
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!
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?
do i need to submit sitemap offten on google webmaster tool ? becuase my new post still not count
No you don’t need to.
Yes.
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?
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
I follow the steps as per video, when click “xml sitemap”, it shows 404 rather than the list. How can I improve it?
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.
thanks
Thanks alot! my new site is now working well.
Helped me more than anything I have found in the very difficult endeavor of selfing a site. Thank you. Owe you one.
I want to edit the XML file created by SEO by Yoast Plugin. Where can I find the file?
Pretty sure any change you make will be overwritten whenever you make a new page/post.
Thank you! I have a new site and your tips really works well for me
Have a great day!
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.
Hi! My homepage title duplicates, what was the reason behind it? How can I fix the error? Please help! Thanks!
Does this work for .com sites? if not, what can I do to make my site easy to crawl?
Very good . I love this. Helpful.
Thanks from Thailand.
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.
Nice post. Was able to set my sitemap in seconds thanks to your wonderful tutorial.
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
I am also getting this error? Did you manage to fix it?
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.
Great article. Thank you!
It’s taken me ages until now, but up and running.
Awesome post,i created my site sitemap using this method thanks a lot for sharing Syed Balkhi.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
once again excellent article.
falling in love with wpbeginner.:)
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.
Awesome post! Thank you!
What a brilliantly clear article – very easy to use and run through. many thanks
Thanks, this was helpful to me. Yoast’s WordPress SEO is a great plugin.
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.
Not unless you modify the plugin. Scrapers will scrape your content regardless. They don’t need RSS for that.
NICE POST !!! (y)
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
it will be in yourdomain.com/blog/sitemap.xml
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
You only submit your sitemap once. After that your sitemap does the job of updating search engines
Thanks for the enlightment
It appears that Editorial Staff is busy somewhere…..
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…?
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….
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
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.
Thank you, that was a useful post. I’ve been wondering if it’s necessary to post Yoast’s sitemap to the WT area.
It’s not necessary, but it will help you see if there are any errors and such.
So does a bot know to look for that map? Or is Yoast’s plugin actually submitting it anyway?
To get the best results and confirmation that the bot is actually seeing your sitemap, you should submit the sitemap in Google.
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?
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.
Agreed
Just getting round to using the Yoast SEO plugin.
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..
Those SEO tools don’t know any better.
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!!