Feeds that comply with the XML Sitemap and Google News protocol for fast indexing by Google, Yahoo, Bing, Ask and others. Multi-Site and Multi-Lingual
This plugin dynamically creates feeds that comply with the XML Sitemap and the Google News Sitemap protocol. It is Multi-Site and Polylang compatible and there are no files created. Some new options under the Privacy settings on Settings > Reading allow control over the sitemaps, which post and taxonomy types are included and any additional robots.txt rules.
You or site owners on your Multi-site network will not be bothered with complicated settings like other XML Sitemap plugins. XML sitemap values like ChangeFreq and URL Priority are auto-calculated based on post age and comment activity.
The feeds become instantly available: One XML Sitemap on yourblogurl.tld/sitemap.xml (or yourblogurl.tld/?feed=sitemap), ready for indexing by search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask.com and others. And one Google News Sitemap on yourblogurl.tld/sitemap-news.xml (or yourblogurl.tld/?feed=sitemap-news), ready for indexing by Google News. Both are automatically referenced in the dynamically created robots.txt on yourblogurl.tld/robots.txt to tell search engines where to find your XML Sitemaps.
Please read the FAQ’s for info on how to get your articles listed on Google News.
Compatible with caching plugins like WP Super Cache, W3 Total Cache and Quick Cache that cache feeds, allowing a faster serving to the hungry, impatient (!) spider.
NOTES:
- If you do not use fancy URL’s or you have WordPress installed in a subdirectory, a dynamic robots.txt will NOT be generated. You’ll have to create your own and upload it to your site root! See FAQ’s.
- On large sites, it is advised to use a good caching plugin like Quick Cache, WP Super Cache or W3 Total Cache to improve your site and sitemap performance.
Advantages
- The main advantage of this plugin over other XML Sitemap plugins is simplicity. No need to change file or folder permissions, move files or spend time on a difficult plugin options page. In fact, there are no options at all!
- Completely automatic post URL priority and change frequency calculation based on post age and comment and trackback activity.
- Works out-of-the-box, even on multi-site / shared codebase / multi-blog setups like WordPress MU, WP 3.0 in MultiSite (WPMS) mode and others.
- Also works upon Network Activate or placed in /mu-plugins/ on WP 3.0 in MS mode and WPMU and even takes care to exclude any tags blogs to avoid malus points for link spamming.
- Compatible with multi-lingual sites using Polylang to allow all languages to be indexed equally.
Limitations
- Except by re-saving older posts from time to time (keeping the lastmod date fairly recent) there is no way to manually control the priority of individual posts/pages in the sitemap. See the Faq’s for more.
- This plugin does not ping any search engines. But then, WordPress does this by default already via the Ping-o-Matic service so why bother? See the Faq’s for more.
- Because the feed is dynamically created, on very large sites the creation process might take a while. Search engines are said to have a short fuse about waiting for a sitemap, so you may want to consider using a cache plugin that also (pre)caches feeds. If you are unfamiliar with caching and server setup start with an easy caching plugin such asQuick Cache. For more options (and better performance) you might find solace in WP Super Cache or W3 Total Cache.
- On VERY large sites (read: over 10.000 posts) with limited memory assigned to PHP, the generation of the sitemap might cause a problem when the process runs out of memory. See the FAQ’s for tips to increase the PHP memory limit on your server.
Translations
- Dutch * Author: R.A. van Hagen (version 4.0)
- French * Author: R.A. van Hagen (version 4.0)
New transtations will be accepted and listed here. See instructions under Other Notes.
Credits
XML Sitemap Feed was originally based on the discontinued plugin Standard XML Sitemap Generator by Patrick Chia. Many thanks! Since then, it has been completely rewritten and extended in many ways.