Requires WordPress Version: 2.6 or higher
Compatible up to: 3.3.2
This plugin dynamically creates feeds that comply with the XML Sitemap and the Google News Sitemap protocol. It is Multi-Site and Multi-Lingual compatible and there are no options to be set nor file or dir access rights to be tampered with.
You or your 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 is 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.
Compatible with caching plugins like Super Cache, W3 Total Cache and Quick Cache that cache feeds, allowing better performance to serve the hungry (impatient) spider.
qTranslate and xLanguage compatible! Tested in Pre-Path Mode and Query Mode. Each language on your site will have its own XML Sitemap.
NOTES:
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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.
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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 qTranslate or xLanguage to allow all languages to be indexed equally.
Limitations
- The feed contains the front page and all posts and pages but excludes category, tag and other dynamic archive pages. This should not be a problem and by most it is even advised to exclude them. There are SEO plugins around that actively block these archive pages from search engines.
- 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 as Quick Cache. For more options (and better performance?) you might find solace in WP Super Cache or W3 Total Cache.
Translations
There is nothing to translate. The sitemap protocol is international, there is no options page nor any front-end or widget output. Nothing to see here, please move along 
Plugin developers
Since 3.8.5, there is a FILTER hook xml_sitemap_url available that lets you filter the URL for the sitemap reference in the generated robots.txt and the home URL in the sitemap. It sends both string (for single url) and array (for multiple urls) and should receive the same. See pre-packaged examples of it’s use in xml-sitemap.php for the qTranslate and xLanguage plugins.
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.
Installation Instructions
WordPress
Quick installation: Install now !
… OR …
Search for “xml sitemap feed” and install with that slick Plugins > Add New back-end page.
… OR …
Follow these steps:
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Download archive.
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Upload the zip file via the Plugins > Add New > Upload page … OR … unpack and upload with your favourite FTP client to the /plugins/ folder.
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Activate the plugin on the Plug-ins page.
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If you have been using another XML Sitemap plugin before, check your site root and remove any created sitemap.xml file that remained there.
Done! Check your sparkling new XML Sitemap by visiting yourblogurl.tld/sitemap.xml (adapted to your domain name ofcourse) with a browser or any online XML Sitemap validator. You might also want to check if the sitemap is listed in your yourblogurl.tld/robots.txt file.
WordPress 3+ in Multi Site mode
Same as above but do a Network Activate to make a XML sitemap available for each site on your network.
WordPress MU
The plugin works best from the /mu-plugins/ folder where it runs quietly in the background without bothering any blog owner with new options or the need for special knowledge of XML Sitemap submission. Just upload the complete package content to /mu-plugins/ and move the file xml-sitemap.php from the new /mu-plugins/xml-sitemap-feed/ to /mu-plugins/.
Installed alongside WordPress MU Sitewide Tags Pages, XML Sitemap Feed will not create a sitemap.xml nor change robots.txt for any tag blogs. This is done deliberately because they would be full of links outside the tags blogs own domain and subsequently ignored (or worse: penalised) by Google.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I get my latest articles listed on Google News?
Go to Suggest News Content for Google News and submit your website info as detailed as possible there. Give them the URL(s) of your fresh new Google News Sitemap in the text field ‘Other’ at the bottom.
You will also want to add the sitemap to your Google Webmasters Tools account to check its validity and performance. Create an account if you don’t have one yet.
My Google News Sitemap is empty!
The rules of the Google News game are that you do not feed the cookie monster any stale food. Older than 2 days is bad. You need to bake him some fresh bread
How are the values for priority and changefreq calculated?
The front page has a fixed priority of 100% (1.0). When your site has more posts than pages (you must be using WordPress for a blog), pages have a default priority of 40% (0.4) and posts have a default priority of 80% (0.8). If your site has more pages than posts (you must be using WordPress as CMS), pages have a default priority of 80% (0.8) and posts have a default priority of 40% (0.4).
Page and post priority can vary between 0% (0.0) and 100% (1.0). Page priority depends on the page level (decreasing 10% for each sub-level) and relative number of comments. Post priority depends on relative number of comments and relative last comment age or (when the post has no comments) last post modification age.
The changefreq of the front page is fixed to daily and calculated for pages and post to either daily, weekly, monthly or yearly depending on age and comment activity.
Dynamic pages like category pages, tag pages and archive pages are not listed in the XML Sitemap.
Can I manipulate values for priority and changefreq?
Yes and No. This plugin has no options page so there is no way to manually set the priority of urls in the sitemap. But there is automatic post priority calculation based on post modifaction date and comment activity, that can either make post priority go to 100% (1.0) for posts with many and recent comments or 0% (0) for the oldest posts with no comments.
This feature can be used to your advantage: by re-saving your most important older posts from time to time, keeping the lastmod date fairly recent, you can ensure a priority of at least 80% (0.8) for those URLs. And if you have enough comments on on those pages, the priority can even go up to 100% (1.0).
If you cannot live with these rules, edit the values $min_priority, $max_priority and $frontpage_priority in xml-sitemap-feed/feed-sitemap.php but be careful to NOT do an automatic upgrade or it will overwrite your customisation.
Do I need to submit the sitemap to search engines?
No. In normal circumstances, your site will be indexed by the major search engines before you know it. The search engines will be looking for a robots.txt file and (with this plugin activated) find a pointer in it to the XML Sitemap on your blog. The search engines will return on a regular basis to see if your site has updates.
( Read more about Ping-O-Matic under Does this plugin ping search engines (below) to make sure your site is under normal circumstances )
But if you have a server without rewrite rules, use your blog without fancy URLs (meaning, you have WordPress Permalinks set to the old Default value) or have it installed in a subdirectory, read Do I need to change my robots.txt for more instructions.
Does this plugin ping search engines?
No. While other XML Sitemap plugins provide pinging to some search engines upon each post edit or publication, this plugin does not. There are two reasons for that:
- WordPress has a built-in pinging feature. Go in your WP Admin section to Settings > Writing and make sure that the text area under Update services contains at least
http://rpc.pingomatic.com. Read more on Ping-O-Matic about what excellent service you are actually getting for free with every WordPress blog installation! - For the average website, in my experience, pinging Google or others after each little change does not benefit anything except a theoretical smaller delay in re-indexation of your website. This is only theoretical because if your site is popular and active, major search engines will likely be crawling your site on a very regular basis anyway. And if, on the other hand, your site is not high on the agenda of the major search engines, they will likely give no priority to your pings at all.
You can always take a Google Webmasters Tools account which will tell you many interesting things about your website, sitemap downloads, search terms and your visitors. Try it!
Do I need to change my robots.txt?
That depends. In normal circumstances, if you have no physical robots.txt file in your site root, the new sitemap url will be automatically added to the dynamic robots.txt that is generated by WordPress. But in some cases this might not be the case.
If you use a static robots.txt file in your website root, you will need to open it in a text editor. If there is already a line with Sitemap: http://yourblogurl.tld/sitemap.xml you can just leave it like it is. But if there is no sitemap referrence there, add it (adapted to your site url) to make search engines find your XML Sitemap.
Or if you have WP installed in a subdirectory, on a server without rewrite_rules or if you do not use fancy URLs in your Permalink structure settings. In these cases, WordPress will need a little help in getting ready for XML Sitemap indexing. Read on in the WordPress section for more.
My WordPress powered blog is installed in a subdirectory. Does that change anything?
That depends on where the index.php and .htaccess of your installation reside. If they are in the root while the rest of the WP files are installed in a subdir, so the site is accessible from your domain root, you do not have to do anything. It should work out of the box. But if the index.php is together with your wp-config.php and all other WP files in a subdir, meaning your blog is only accessible via that subdir, you need to manage your own robots.txt file in your domain root. It has to be in the root (!) and needs a line starting with Sitemap: followed by the full URL to the sitemap feed provided by XML Sitemap Feed plugin. Like:
Sitemap: http://yourblogurl.tld/subdir/sitemap.xmlIf you already have a robots.txt file with another Sitemap reference like it, just add the full line below or above it.
Do I need to use a fancy Permalink structure?
No. While I would advise you to use any one of the nicer Permalink structures for better indexing, you might not be able to (or don’t want to) do that. If so, you can still use this plugin:
Check to see if the URL yourblogurl.tld/?feed=sitemap does produce a feed. Now manually upload your own robots.txt file to your website root containing:
Sitemap: http://yourblogurl.tld/?feed=sitemap
User-agent: *
Allow: /You can also choose to notify major search engines of your new XML sitemap manually. Start with getting a Google Webmasters Tools account and submit your sitemap for the first time from there to enable tracking of sitemap downloads by Google! or head over to XML-Sitemaps.com and enter your sites sitemap URL.
Can I change the sitemap name/URL?
No. If you have fancy URL’s turned ON in WordPress (Permalinks), the sitemap url that you manually submit to Google (if you are impatient) should be yourblogurl.tld/sitemap.xml but if you have the Permalinks’ Default option set the feed is only available via yourblogurl.tld/?feed=sitemap.
Where can I customize the xml output?
You may edit the XML output in xml-sitemap-feed/feed-sitemap.php but be careful not to break Sitemap protocol compliance. Read more on Sitemaps XML format.
The stylesheet (to make the sitemap human readable) can be edited in xml-sitemap-feed/sitemap.xsl.php.
I see no sitemap.xml file in my site root!
The sitemap is dynamically generated just like a feed. There is no actual file created.
I see a sitemap.xml file in site root but it does not seem to get updated!
You are most likely looking at a sitemap.xml file that has been created by another XML Sitemap plugin before you started using this plugin. Just remove it and let the plugin dynamically generate it just like a feed. There is no actual file created.
If that’s not the case, you are probably using a caching plugin or your browser does not update to the latest feed output. Please verify.
I use a caching plugin but the sitemap is not cached
Some caching plugins have the option to switch on/off caching of feeds. Make sure it is turned on.
Frederick Townes, developer of W3 Total Cache, says: “There’s a checkbox option on the page cache settings tab to cache feeds. They will expire according to the expires field value on the browser cache setting for HTML.”
I get an ERROR when opening the sitemap or robots.txt!
The following errors might be encountered:
404 page instead of my sitemap.xml
Try to refresh the Permalink structure in WordPress. Go to Settings > Permalinks and re-save them. Then reload the XML Sitemap in your browser with a clean browser cache. ( Try Ctrl+R to bypass the browser cache — this works on most but not all browsers. )
404 page instead of both sitemap.xml and robots.txt
There are plugins like Event Calendar (at least v.3.2.beta2) known to mess with rewrite rules, causing problems with WordPress internal feeds and robots.txt generation and thus conflict with the XML Sitemap Feed plugin. Deactivate all plugins and see if you get a basic robots.txt file showing:
User-agent: *
Disallow:Reactivate your plugins one by one to find out which one is causing the problem. Then report the bug to the plugin developer.
404 page instead of robots.txt while sitemap.xml works fine
There is a know issue with WordPress (at least up to 2.8) not generating a robots.txt when there are no posts with published status. If you use WordPress as a CMS with only pages, this will affect you.
To get around this, you might either at least write one post and give it Private status or alternatively create your own robots.txt file containing:
Sitemap: http://yourblogurl.tld/sitemap.xml
User-agent: *
Allow: /and upload it to your web root…
** Error loading stylesheet: An unknown error has occurred **
On some setups (usually using the WordPress MU Domain Mapping plugin) this error occurs. The problem is known, the cause is not… Until I find out why this is happening, please take comfort in knowing that this only affects reading the sitemap in normal browsers but will NOT affect any spidering/indexing on your site. The sitemap is still readable by all search engines!
Can I run this on a WPMU / WP3+ Multi-Site setup?
Yes. In fact, it has been designed for it. Tested on WPMU 2.9.2 and WPMS 3.0.1 both with normal activation and with Network Activate / Site Wide Activate.
Can I run this plugin from /mu-plugins/ on WP3.0 MS or WPMU ?
Yes. Upload the complete /xml-sitemap-feed/ directory to /wp-content/mu-plugins/ and move the file xml-sitemap.php one dir up.
Changelog
Really? Ok then… Read the full XML & Google News Sitemap Feeds changelog 
Download
Latest version: Download XML & Google News Sitemap Feeds 3.9.1 [zip]
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250 Comments
I have a WordPress Multisite installation using subdirectories.
I am using a plugin called Domain Mapping.
Sitemaps are generated for all of my installed blogs EXCEPT for the main domain.
I should have added that I receive a 404 error.
Please refresh your Permalink structure: Go on your main blogs (!) admin pages to Settings > Permalinks and hit “Save Changes“. No need to actually change anything, just re-save. Then check the sitemap again by reloading it with Ctrl+R (or Cmd+R on a Mac?) …
Let me know if that did not do the trick. Please provide plugin version number and a link to the 404 page.
I have done as you suggested having read the installation instructions.
I have installed and unisntalled a number of times as a plugin and as mu plugin.
I have tried network and individual.
I have rebooted my computer.
Here is the main domain:
http://tydbytes.com/sitemap.xml
http://tydbytes.com/feed/sitemap.xml
Neither works.
Here are 2 of the sites that work beautifully with either feed setup:
http://living-in-the-moment.com/sitemap.xml
http://richardeward.com/feed/sitemap.xml
I’m looking forward to solving this as this is a very sweet plugin.
Thanks
Hmmm… I notice you are using BuddyPress on the main blog? I have no experience with BP. Any chance you could switch it of for a moment and ( for example with the Twenty Ten theme enables) test to see if the sitemap comes alive on the main site then?
You might have hit some incompatibility / conflict with BuddyPress here. Or maybe there is another plugin active on the main blog that is not activated on any of the other sites?
Switched themes to Twenty Ten. No sitemap.
It’s definitely a permalink related thing… Check http://tydbytes.com/?feed=sitemap and you’ll see the sitemap. You could submit that URL to Google Webmaster Tools but it would ne nice if we can figure out why the permalinks http://tydbytes.com/feed/sitemap/ and http://tydbytes.com/sitemap.xml are not working…
I see that you are using the custom permalink structure /%postname%/ … that has in the past caused problems in WP so what if you temporarily switch to one of the preset ones like “Day and Name” for instance?
Oh, and thanks for testing
Tried different permalinks.
No sitemaps.
However, when I used the default permalink I do NOT get a 404 error with either:
http://tydbytes.com/feed/sitemap.xml/
http://tydbytes.com/sitemap.xml/
I just get the home page.
Well, you are using the Default permalinks now. That means only http://tydbytes.com/?feed=sitemap should work… and it does
Same for http://tydbytes.com/?robots=1
Ok, but that doesn’t solve my problem as the default permalinks are useless for me.
I agree, it’s not the solution. But still, with any Permalink structure you choose, http://tydbytes.com/?feed=sitemap will output a sitemap so if you submit that URL in Google Webmaster Tools you’re sure that at least Google finds it… Until I find a cause + fix
I subscribe to http://premium.wpmudev.org/.
Most of my plugins and themes come from them.
I’ll post a request for help in the Forums. The developers are very responsive as are the other members.
Please keep me informed if you learn anything
Hi – Thanks for writing this cool plugin. I am using WP3 with multisites but when I moved the folder to the mu-plugins folder, WP doesn’t recongise/see the install so it doesn’t show in the list. Any ideas?
You need to move the file xml-sitemap.php one dir up. It should be in the /mu-plugins/ directory while the rest can remain in the /mu-plugins/xml-sitemap-feed/ directory.
NOTE: the plugin works just as well when in /plugins/ and “Network Activated” with the advantage that you can upgrade to new versions much easier
404 errors when i open:
http://imagebeijing.com/sitemap.xml
http://imagebeijing.com/robots.txt
tried to turn off all plugins, but still has this problem.
using Default Permalink Settings:
“http://imagebeijing.com/?p=123″ and re-saved .
please help!
thanks!
When you switch to the
?p=123Default Permalink structure, there will be NO robots.txt generated by WordPress and your sitemap will ONLY be available on http://imagebeijing.com/?feed=sitemap . Hence you were getting the 404′s on /sitemap.xml and /robots.txt after the switch too…Looking at your site, I see you switched back to Pretty Permalinks and your sitemap.xml and robots.txt are working
hi i remove the wp_head funtion what i need to use the plugin? any url espcial in header?
Nope, no need for wp_header in your theme… In fact, XML Sitemap Feed uses its own template. It should work just fine
My sitemap on http://www.welt-der-pferde.de creates error messages in Google Webmaster tools, saying that the priority tag has a non valid value in it. Any clue what I can do about it?
BTW, your Sitemap plugin is a nice piece of work
I like the “no frills” and “no buttons” attitude 
What seems to be going on on your site is the calculation has a comma instead of a point to separate the decimals… Normally, a priority of 40% should be written as 0.4 but in your case it is written as 0,4 … And now, Google does not have a clue what to do with that.
Coming from the Netherlands, I am familiar with the comma as decimal sign but I have never seen WordPress or PHP use other than points as decimal sign… Can you tell me what setting on either your server, PHP or in WP could be responsible for this?
Anyway, I’ve just uploaded a development version that should address this issue. You can download it from http://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/xml-sitemap-feed.zip but be careful it has not been tested yet
I think it is the locale setting in PHP that is causing that… I will check in on that later and let you know
I have the same issue as reported by one more guy here, the sitemap does not show up, but if I look at the page source i can see the map, also it comes up in IE 8, and not in Google Crome and Mozilla, any ideas what is the issue and what will be the impact? will google be able to index the urls?
Sounds like an issue with the stylesheet loading… This will not be a problem for search engines (did you check your robots.txt output?) but I am interested in finding the cause of this problem that seems to keep coming back for a few people. Do you have a link for me?
Nayah, I took a look and see no problem with your sitemap. What I did notice is that your robots.txt file is useless. If you really want to manage your robots.txt file manually, you need to put each rule on a NEW line. Like now, all behind the first comment-line, search engines will ignore everything including the sitemap…
Another thing I noticed: You have created a folder /mu-plugins/ INSIDE /plugins/ where you then placed my plugin. If you want to use the XML Sitemap Feed as an MU plugin, move the folder /mu-plugins/ (and its content) one dir up into /wp-content/ … That way, every site in your network will have the plugin auto-activated.
One more tip: Disallow directory browsing on your server by default and only allow it for those folders that you explicitly want to be browsed. Your website security is at risk.
Once I switched permalink to use %postname% your plug-in stopped working. Any ideas on how to fix. need to use postname for SEO
The permalink
/%postname%/for post has been known to cause problems since the beginning of WordPress. It’s reserved for pages and not something I can fix, I’m afraid.You could give
/%postname%/%post_id%a try… But anything simple in front is bound to work, like/-/%postname%/Tested the permalink structures
/%postname%/%post_id%,/-/%postname%/and/%postname%/-for you. They all work.Any of these you could live with, SEO-wise?
I will give it a try. Thx. Also wondering if you know how to get google to find the sitemap if I am mapping a wordpress subdomain to a TLD like: http://familyparentingtips.sweetoothmarketing.com mapped to http://www.family-parenting-tips.com
used /%category%/%postname%/ and all is working. My last issue is submitting my sitemap through google webmaster tools. If I submit the TLD I cannot seem to point it to the subdomain’s sitemap by using http://www.MyTLD.com/sitemap.xml. Any ideas?
How did you set this up? CNAME? Anyway, the domain family-parenting-tips.com lands on the correct site but as soon as I follow a link on the front page, the URL changes to familyparentingtips.sweetoothmarketing… I can highly recommend the plugin WPMU Domain Mapping http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-mu-domain-mapping/ to take care of this for you. The XML Sitemap Feed will listen to how you configure the site’s primary domain in Domain Mapping and change the link URLs accordingly.
Another thing I notice is that you are using a static robots.txt file. Do you do that for that archiver exclusion rule? The easiest would be to remove the static file and leave it to WordPress + XML Sitemap Feed to take care of it. But if you want to stick to using the static file, you need to change the sitemap URLs to reflect the domains that you set up in Domain Mapping as the Primary domains!
Hello,
Could you tell if this plugin supports the use of custom post types? (WordPress 3.0) as my site is mainly build upon them.
Hallo Cor,
I have not tested with custom post types but I would be very interested in the result. The plugin will not create any database tables or even any extra options (only some new permalink rules that will disappear after deactivation). So you are safe to take it for a spin without creating extra clutter in your DB
Again, I’d be interested in the results and prepared to code a fix if need be!
Allard
Hallo Allard,
Thank you for your quick response. I’ve just enabled this plugin on one of my newly created client sites and it’s working more than great with custom post types! http://intogirls.net/sitemap.xml
Best Regards,
Cor
Excellent! That’s good to hear
however, I am wondering if the priority calculation is working as it should. Which urls are pages and which are custom post types?
Oh, and may I suggest another one of my plugins Easy FancyBox to improve the image presentation?
Hi webmaster,
i use wp 3.01 in multi-site with domain mapping plugin, also i use robot meta and gresg high performance seo plugin.
and after all i get
Error loading stylesheet: An unknown error has occurred (805303f4)http://famex.wexpress.com.ar/wp-content/plugins/xml-sitemap-feed/sitemap.xsl.php?v=3.8.5
any idea what’s happening?
Sorry pescadito, for the delay. Your comment got marked as spam by an over-zealous anti-spam plugin…
Your sitemap itself seems to be fine. It is just the stylesheet that does not seem to work right on your setup. This is not a problem for search engines. They ignore the stylesheet and it is there just for webmaster-eye-candy
But I can tell you what is going wrong: When requesting the URL of the stylesheet directly, it downloads and is complete so there is no reason why it should not work. Except for one thing: the URL domain of the sitemap (and site) is famex.com.ar while the URL domain of the sitemap stylesheet (and all other stylesheets, images and script files) is famex.wexpress.com.ar… For some reason this is not accepted by your browser which causes the error.
Are you using Donncha’s Domain Mapping plugin? Is it installed in /mu-plugins/ ? Do you have the domain famex.com.ar as Primary domain? If all of these, I wonder why the subdomain famex.wexpress.com.ar is still used for stylesheetsand other URLs in the page source…
Hi Ravan
I have your plugin installed on a WP3.0.1 site running MS mode. All working fine including submitting sitemap to Google Webmaster. Thanks for a great plugin.
My problem is this. When I create a new site (Super Admin/Sites/Add New) the Add Site button throws up this error:
Fatal error: Cannot redeclare xml_sitemap_load_template() (previously declared in /home/realesta/public_html/wp-content/plugins/xml-sitemap-feed/xml-sitemap.php:71) in /home/realesta/public_html/wp-content/plugins/xml-sitemap-feed/xml-sitemap.php on line 72
The new site is created ok but clearly there’s something wrong somewhere. I’m not sure where to start and have left a similar message to this on the WPMU Dev Forum. Would appreciate any assistance you can provide.
Regards
Peter
Thanks Peter for reporting this. Will look into it ASAP…
Peter, I cannot reproduce the problem. You have the plugin installed under /plugins/ like normal. Do you have it ‘Network Activated’? Any other plugins running on your network? And what happens if you move my plugin to /mu-plugins/ (I suppose you know what that means?) … still the same error?
I find it a bit worrying that WPMS (in your case) seems to try to load the same plugin file twice. Now I know that during the creation of a new site the system does a kind of identity switch where it does some setup routines as if called from the new site instead of from the site where you as Super Admin are on but this should not cause the plugin file being required for a second time…
Although it should not be necessary, I could code a ‘if not exists’ to prevent redeclaration. In itself, not a bad idea so I’ll plan that for the next release. Please let me know if there is any interesting response on the WPMU Dev forum (e-mail me)
Thanks for your patience and (again) for reporting the issue!
Allard
In answer to your questions earlier:
“How did you set this up? CNAME?”
>> I use the domain mapping tool and server IP address not CNAME
“the domain family-parenting-tips.com lands on the correct site but as soon as I follow a link on the front page, the URL changes to familyparentingtips.sweetoothmarketing… I can highly recommend the plugin WPMU Domain Mapping http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-mu-domain-mapping/ to take care of this for you.”
>>I use this plug-in but it doesn’t seem to change the fact that my subdomain shows up when clicking through a site.
“The XML Sitemap Feed will listen to how you configure the site’s primary domain in Domain Mapping and change the link URLs accordingly.”
>> My primary domain doesn’t show up in my domain mapping list. I dont know why but I know it is there because domain ID 1 is missing and I can’t add my primary domain to the list a second time.
I am still unable to get your plug-in to work via any TLDs. Any clues would be appreciated. I may have configured something wrong.
Another thing I notice is that you are using a static robots.txt file. Do you do that for that archiver exclusion rule? The easiest would be to remove the static file and leave it to WordPress + XML Sitemap Feed to take care of it. But if you want to stick to using the static file, you need to change the sitemap URLs to reflect the domains that you set up in Domain Mapping as the Primary domains!
That’s odd…
I’m not talking about your Networks main domain here. It’s confusing, sorry. I mean that in WPMU Domain Mapping you can apply many domain names to one site (blog) but only one of those can be the ‘primary domain’ for that site (blog)… So each site in your network has at least one primary domain.
You should set it up like this:
1. On Super Admin > Domain Mapping have the correct IP address filled out (you already have that) then make sure that under Domain Options the box 2 is checked (the others are optional and only concern the back-end)
2. Go to Super Admin > Domains and make sure that the domain http://www.family-parenting-tips.com listed there as a YES in the column Primary. If not, hit Edit next to it and place a checkmark at Primary…
the fact that you do not see your main site domain there is on purpose. It would confuse things too much if you would be allowed to change the domain name of your main site through the Domain Mapping plugin.
Hey, Carlton, just took a quick look at your sites again and notice it’s working fine now !
Additional comment/question:
I noticed in Edit Site subpanel for all of my blogs there is a field called XML Sitemap with a value of “0″. Should this have something else in that field like a path or something?
That might be caused by another plugin. Not mine… If you have XML Sitemap Feed properly installed, you should be able to find a field called Xml-sitemap-feed-version with the latest version number (probably 3.8.5) as value. Is that the case?
Hi Ravan and sorry for the delay too, i just come today to come to see your answer.
I run a wp3.0.1 multisite with domain mapping plugin (i use the 2.1.1 wpmudev.org plugin), the main site is ‘wexpress.com.ar’, and the original child site ‘famex.wexpress.com.ar’ withc after domain mapping become ‘famex.com.ar’.
i understand the stylesheet come from different url (famex.wexpress.com.ar) but i don’t know what is needed to resolve the problem.
i really appreciate if you have any idea to it!
best regard, pescadito
I’ve tested the XML Sitemap Feed plugin with the Donncha’s domain mapping plugin that you are using: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-mu-domain-mapping/ . Not sure if that is comparable with the domain mapping plugin from WPMU Dev but if it is, this should not be happening…
However, I’m working on a new version that might solve your problem. It’s a long shot (which I cannot test) so please tell me if it doesn’t
It will be available at the end of this week, I hope.
hi ravan
with respect to the stylesheet problem, i test it with different browsers:
Safari done a blank page
Firefox done the first reported error
Internet explorer done:
Acceso denegado. Error al procesar el recurso http://famex.wexpress.com.ar/wp-content/plugins/xml-sitemap-feed/sitemap.xsl….
in Safari i can see the correct source code, in firefox and internet explorer i can’t see the source code.
best regard, pescadito
Different browsers will react differently to the discrepancy in the domain name but like I said, search engines will not have a problem with it because they ignore the stylesheet completely.
Anyway, could you check version 3.8.6 to see if the ‘problem’ persists?
I’m actually experiencing that problem with 3.8.6 and Donncha’s domain mapping plugin.
Hmmm…. and what settings for Domain Mapping do you use? Again, spiders will not have a problem with it so it’s not on my URGENT list
but it would be nice to figure out what’s happening here. Do you use any caching (plugin or server) on your network?
Not sure what you mean by “settings”? We map domains with both A Records and CNAME. We keep the subdomain URL in the settings, we don’t switch both. I am using WP Super Cache as well.
I realize that bots see the page ,but it’s difficult to explain to end users who are concerned with these matters (sitemaps, Webmaster tools) that try and view the page and see an error.
I do appreciate your work on this plugin.
I mean the settings on Super Admin > Domain Mapping… I need to figure out why the WP internal function plugins_url() returns another domain than get_bloginfo(‘url’). At least, that is what I’m supposing here. What domain is used in the robots.txt for each site in your network? The mapped TLD domain or the original subdomain? If you have a link for me…
hi ravan and nice news
i test your last version: all seems to work well!
so, best regards,
pescadito
The robots.txt file has the mapped domain URL.
Using remote login & redirct administration pages to site’s original domain
Tested with those settings but cannot reproduce the problem… could you tell me if checking the option 4. Permanent redirect changes anything? What other plugins are you running (active / network active / in mu-plugins) ?
Sorry, I do have permanent redirect checked also.
I have quite a few network wide(mu) plugins, probably too many to list. Again, thank you for looking into it, I will try to some debugging on my end when I have a bit more time to commit to the issue, I’m a one man band running a couple multi-site installs, so I get pulled in several directions.
This is actually the simplest sitemap plugin ever! Thanks so much.
Question: Is there a way to remove a page or posts from the sitemap, but leave it Published on the site?
Thanks
Steve
Wanting to keep the plugin as simple as it is now, dictates that every public post and page is weighed, prioritized and included in the sitemap automatically. Only Private posts are excluded but then you would have to ask your readers to become (at least) a Subscriber to be able to read that post.
A workaround might be to use one of the SEO plugins that allow individual posts to use “noindex” meta to prevent indexing. I do not have experience with any SEO plugin so I cannot predict how XML Sitemap Feed will react to any of them but most likely the noindex posts will still be in the sitemap… If you get a chance to test with this idea, please report back your findings and I might consider coding for some extra compatibility in this area as I did for language/translation plugins like qTranslate and xLanguage.
Hello,
Thanks for the great plugin but I encounter a problem:
I am setting up a WP3.0.1 multisite (by Domain-Mapping plugin), and have the XML-Sitemap-Feed plugin placed in /mu-plugins/.
After following the instructions above, I try to access [domain]/sitemap.xml
In firefox, it bumps me with “Error loading stylesheet: An unknown error has occured (805303f4)”
http://domainp?v=3.8.6 ***<—- note the "p?v=3.8.6"
I checked the raw response using Firebug:
I then spent some time walking with the source: feed-sitemap.php
the function plugins_url() is called, and
before plugins_url() returns a value, the $url is actually correct.
*** expecting http://domain/wp-content/mu-plugins/xml-sitemap-feed/sitemap.xsl.php
However, after the apply_filters(‘plugins_url’, $url, $path, $plugin) function, it turns out: p?v=3.8.6
Since I am not familar with the WordPress Core, I am posting my findings for advice. If it is not a bug, please drop me a hint to resolve this issue. Thank you.
Hoball
Hi hoball,
It seems you are not the only one that has a setup where the WP core function plugins_url() does not return what it is supposed to. If I could only reproduce this particticular problem on one of my own installs, it would be much easier to figure out…
Thanks for reporting your findings. I will try once more to find out what is going wrong.
First off, what a terrific plugin. Thanks for creating it!
I just upgraded to XML Sitemap Feed 3.8.6 using the WP upgrade panel. The sitemap plugin was working fine before the upgrade, but I immediately got an database error when the admin upgrade page reloaded after the upgrade was complete. I deactivated the plugin, then tried to re-activated it. I get this error:
Fatal error: Undefined class name ‘self’ in http://pinnaclepres.org/HaitiInitiative/wp-content/plugins/xml-sitemap-feed/xml-sitemap.php on line 129
The first error on admin page reload pointed to line 171.
Any suggestions on what might have changed between versions to have caused this? And what the solution might be?
Thanks in advance!
Hmmm… that might be a PHP version issue. Do you know what version is installed on your hosts server by any chance? Anyway, will look into it and release a fix ASAP. Thanks for reporting
Yes, it’s running PHP Version 4.3.10-22.
PHP 4 compatibility should be fixed in the new release 3.8.7 which is now available
Hi, I posted this on the support forum, but not sure if it got thru (don’t see it in the threads) so just in case asking here as well:
I have a Russian-language website http://ruauto.infonex.us, attempt to generate a sitemap for it: http://ruauto.infonex.us/sitemap.xml does’t work and often I get a weird “Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 67108864 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 64 bytes)” in /wp-includes/meta.php or /wp-includes/wp_db.php (running WP 3.01). I don’t think it’s a amount of posts issue, because English-language sites with quite large number of posts generate correct sitemap e.g. http://travel.infonex.us/sitemap.xml
Please help.
Do you get that error in the log files or on screen? When I open your sitemap, I see that it does not contain any URLS (and my browser throws an error because of that) but why that happens, I could not tell you. How many posts are on that site? How much memory is allowed for PHP on the server?
@RavanH Thanks for the prompt reply! I noticed that I get that error when I first try to load the site map (the error is shown in the source of generated XML). On the consecutive loads error doesn’t show, all I get is urlset header, but still no URLs).
There’re over 4500 posts on that site, so come to think of it, it may be a number of posts issue.
Not sure how to check PHP memory allocation on the BlueHost, and I don’t think I have control over it in any case. If this is because of number of posts – is there away to reduce memory footprint while generating the map?
In feed-sitemap.php there is the main query :
`
query_posts( array(
‘post_type’ => ‘any’,
‘post_status’ => ‘publish’,
‘caller_get_posts’ => 1,
‘nopaging’ => true,
‘posts_per_page’ => -1 )
);
`
You might try to remove the line `’nopaging’ => true,` and change the number behind `’posts_per_page’ => ` from -1 to a fixed number. Try 1000 for instance. If you still get the error, try a lower number until you reach a working sitemap.
Downside ofcourse is that your sitemap is not complete and you’ll have to do this after each upgrade of the plugin…
Are you running any other plugins that might put extra load on the query memory usage?
I see, but that seems to be only a half solution. Could you perhaps post an update that doesn’t load all the posts into memory at once? It can be a problem for many blogs with large number of posts and if it’s not a problem now – it can definitely become one in the future. Maybe use paging indeed to load smaller subset of posts at a time and in an outer loop go thru all the pages? I am no PHP expert, but it seems logical.
Also I do use a few other plugins, but nothing really memory-intense.
I agree it’s not a solution, just a quick-fix to test if it really is a memory issue… You see the parts “67108864 bytes … (tried to allocate 64 bytes)” in the error message strike me as funny. BlueHost by default allows for 32MB while 67108864 bytes is 64MB. And either way, allocating 64bytes should not be a problem at all
Since I do not have a WP site with that many posts on it, I’d like to ask you to test a little before I can decide what approach would work best here. So if you could perform the test I described earlier, and report me the results, I ‘d be grateful
Another fix might be to increase the memory limit as shown on http://tutorials.bluehost.com/memory/ to see if that changes anything. And with such a large site, you might also consider using at least some basic caching plugin like Quick Cache.
Thanks for providing link to Bluehost’s PHP memory management. Actually I used both of your suggestions – I wanted the map to show at least 2000 links, so I modified query_posts paging parameters, but it still caused memory error, so I adjusted memory allocation in PHP.INI and now it works.
But an update is appreciated anyway
I have installed your plugin. I can only see the sitemap at the following location:
http://www.shredtalks.com/?feed=sitemap
Does this mean that search engines will not find it because they are looking for:
http://www.shredtalks.com/sitemap.xml
For permalink, I am using Day and name in WP 3.0
When I open http://www.shredtalks.com/sitemap.xml , I see your sitemap… and so will the Search Engines
Did you do anything like reloading the Permalink settings or anything?
a fix for the following problem:
Error loading stylesheet: A network error occured loading an XSLT stylesheet:http://example.com/wp-content/plugins/xml-sitemap-feed/sitemap.xsl.php?v=3.8.8
in feed-sitemap.php:
replace
get_option(‘home’)
with
get_option(‘siteurl’)
It’s in the development version 3.9
which — by the way — also includes a Google News Sitemap ( for those that are curious and willing to test… )
hi,
I have posted a question on wordpress forum:
[Plugin: XML Sitemap Feed] wp-super-cache ignores v3.8.8 sitemap on WP3.0.1 multisite (1 post)
http://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-xml-sitemap-feed-wp-super-cache-ignores-v388-sitemap-on-wp301-multisite
Is it actually an issue of XML-Sitemap-Feed or WP-Super-Cache?
Hi again
First make sure you visit your sitemap while NOT being logged in to your WordPress site to make Super Cache do its full song and dance… Do you have a link to your sitemap for me?
@hoball
Donncha, the brain behind WP Super Cache, suggests you try running Super Cache with the Debug option ON to find out what might cause the page regeneration. I suppose you can find more info on debugging in the Super Cache source code…
I am a bit confused about the robots text file. This is what my robots.txt has in it
# XML Sitemap Feed 3.9 (http://4visions.nl/en/wordpress-plugins/xml-sitemap-feed/)
Sitemap: http://deskofbrian.com/sitemap.xml
Sitemap: http://deskofbrian.com/sitemap-news.xml
I understand the sitemap.xml and sitemap-news.xml but I am not sure if the statement above those two is required to be there. Also, I have a sitemap at sitemap-xml which is really up to date. My first question is:
1. Is my robots.txt file correct or should I rebuild it with the sitemap-xml file included instead of the .xml file?
2. I am using all in one webmaster which submits to google, bing, yahoo etc… and they are asking for my sitemap under the settings, which sitemap do I type into their plugin?
Note: I built my sitemap with xml-sitemaps.com due to memory errors from my hosting company, which may explain the multiple sitemaps. Thank you in advance.
Hi Brian, I fear you may be missing the point of the XML Sitemap Feed plugin… On your website you seem to have used a standalone sitemap generator that creates a sitemap.xml file. My plugin does NOT create a static file but instead creates a dynamic feed, managed by WordPress. What you see on http://deskofbrian.com/sitemap-news.xml, http://deskofbrian.com/sitemap-xml and even http://deskofbrian.com/?feed=sitemap are exacly that.
To let XML Sitemap Feed do its work to the full extend, you need to remove the static sitemap.xml file from your site root. After that, the dynamic feed will become accessible and you can use the standard URL http://deskofbrian.com/sitemap.xml for your sitemap submission.
The robots.txt is correct. That first line beginning with a # tag is just a comment and will be ignored by all search engines. The first ‘Sitemap: …’ entry is what they will be looking for and if you have submitted your site to Google News, the second one will serve you well too
By the way, I notice you are using WP Super Cache on your site. This is a good idea and will cache your (large) sitemap too for better performance.
hi,
i use your sitemap plugin and i have got the ok from google to be listed in google news.
(b.t.w -great plugin, works fine in multisite – AND with qtranslate)
i use AIOSEO – and rewrite my titles (for seo reasons) – news stiemap doesn’t take the rewrited titles – so i woundered – if this would be possible?
thanks a lot, johann
Hi Johan, I have no experience with AIOSEO… How does it rewrite the titles exactly? Is there some theme adaptation needed for that?
The News Sitemap prints it’s post titles with
< ?php the_title(); ?>like most normal themes do so I’d expect a plugin that changes post titles to work just the same here. Unless that plugin does not manipulate post titles in feeds… Is that the case with AIOSEO?hi, i have seen – AIOSEO doesn’t rewrite the titles in feeds – mh i will try at first to make my titles seo like -then i don’t need to rewrite titles..
for example: i have authors example title:
HASCHER JEHLE Architektur -> title in post
HASCHER JEHLE Architektur – Profile | Springer Architektur -> title for google results.
b.t.w. – google gives a failur for the news-sitemap in english – i guess cause i suggested to google only in german language?
Unexpected language
The language specified in your sitemap does not match any of the languages we have for your publication in our database. Please check that you have specified your language code correctly. Language should be an ISO 639 Language Code (either 2 or 3 letters). Exception: For Chinese, please use zh-cn for Simplified Chinese or zh-tw for Traditional Chinese.
Johann, could you give me the URL of the news sitemap that is reported as having the wrong language code ? And is that the same URL as is accepted by Google News ?
Thanks for the prompt response Johann. I have gone into the root and deleted the sitemap.xml file, and I then resubmitted it to google webmasters. I am hoping this works. Also, do I need to do anything with your plugin since I made the changes?
Brian, it looks like your sitemap (on /sitemap.xml) is correct. It’s cached and gzipped and all is working well. You need to do nothing more. WordPress in combo with Super Cache and XML Sitemap Feed will keep your sitemap up-to-date. That’s the beauty of the feed approach
@RavanH
here we are – what i think is – the sitemap is correct – google news don’t accepted the sitemap in german AND english
you can see the sitemmap urls in the robots.txt
http://www.springerarchitektur.at/robots.txt
all sitemaps are working – except the news sitemap in english..
(in multisite, english, german, qtranslate – respect!)
thanks a lot!
johann
Johann, not clear on what the problem is exactly, I will send you a direct e-mail. Let’s see if we can figure this out…
Getting a weird validation error:
This feed does not validate.
line 7, column 0: Undefined root element: urlset [help]
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9" xmlns:xsi="http: …
using 3.9 version of plugin. thoughts?
Hi Michael, have you got a link to your sitemap feed for me? And where are you trying to validate the feed?
Hi,
To start with, I’d like to thank you for this fantastic plugin.
It works superbly except for a little glitch, once solved will allow us to use this plugin on our website.
The plugin is generating sitemap.xml and robots.txt but sitemap-news.xml gives 404. I checked that feed=sitemap and feed=sitemap-news are both being generated.
Any solutions for this?
It is a multisite setup. Could the problem be anything to do with htaccess?
The plugin is designed with Multi-site in mind so a generic WPMS .htacces should not be the problem. Did you do add any custom rules in there?
On first note: It sounds like a Permalink problem. Activate the plugin and re-save your permalink settings. Then check the /sitemap-news.xml url again…
I notice on your site there is the Arne Brachhold’s Google Sitemap Generator plugin running. Make sure you remove all static files that are created by that plugin, including any rewrite (and maybe even .htaccess?) rules. Also remove any static robots.txt file to allow every site on your network to have it’s own version with the respective sitemap url(s) in it.
If it still does not work, please give me a link where I can see the problem live…
Hi
I’m running a WPMS 3.03 and your plugin for a while, just updated from the former release. It works for the main domain http://1a-sales.com only, while all other sites, eg. strassen-030.de/sitemap.xml download my blog feed – http://feeds.strassen-030.de/mind-map in this case. Yes, robots.txt is present, everything is done as mentioned above.
Having your note in mind, I just submitted all of the new sitemaps anyway, to Google (some of them were accepted, some were not) and Bing (accepted all) ?!
In GWT, the active ones display Zero or less pages indexed than before – I’ve used “Google XML Sitemaps with Multisite support” for all the sub-sites, until today.
Maybe it’s a conflict with another plugin:
All in One SEO Pack
WordPress MU Domain Mapping
Proper Network Activation
FeedBurner FeedSmith
RSS Includes Pages
WP Super Cache
..and others that I guess don’t matter in this context, but neither BuddyPress nor Event-List.
To be honest, I don’t want to stop using one of them, cause there are 10 live sites dependent on any change. I’ve returned to the parallel use, which is not a satisfying solution.
Maybe You can help, thanks in advance,
Mathias
Domain Mapping and Super Cache should not be a problem but any of the other plugins might cause conflict. I’d be especially suspicious of the two plugins that meddle with FEEDS… My plugin creates two new feeds and they might be affected by any other plugin that changes either URL or content of your feeds.
What about Proper Network Activation. Did you have that active while Network Activating my plugin? It should not be necessary. I have no experience with that plugin but it might cause some kind of conflict too.
And is Arne Brachhold’s sitemap plugin still active on strassen-030.de for instance? That will surely cause conflict
I still see http://strassen-030.de/sitemaps/strassen-030-de.xml.gz referenced in http://strassen-030.de/robots.txt… If that plugin is deactiavted, please remove any files AND .htaccess rules it has created. And to be sure, re-save the Permalink sructure…
Thanks for the reply. I will try out the permalinks again.
I am not trying the plugin on the live site as yet, it is on a copy of the live site that I maintain on my local machine at work. Which, unfortunately, is only accessible locally in the office.
If need be, I will try to replicate it on another one of our test sites that can be accessible from outside.
It works at the test site at http://onlygizmos.com/wp3, which does not have multisite enabled.
I don’ t see it working. Visiting http://onlygizmos.com/wp3/sitemap-news.xml or /sitemap.xml I get redirected to http://feeds.feedburner.com/ogfeed … I would guess your theme is redirecting all feeds to Feedburner, correct ? Or do you have some plugin for that?
Try and switch to the Twenty Ten theme or disable the plugin that takes care of the feed redirection. Please let me know the result
Yes, I have feedburner plugin enabled. Looks like that’s another thing I will have to take care of before we can use this plugin.
I got this in my sitemap.xml
< !- generated-on="2010-12-14T22:01:39+00:00" -->< !- generator="XML & Google News Sitemap Feed plugin for WordPress" -->
< !- generator-url="http://4visions.nl/en/wordpress-plugins/xml-sitemap-feed/" -->
< !- generator-version="3.9.1" -->
< !- memory-limit-increase="96M" -->
The sitemap url is http://ntrzacatecas.com/sitemap.xml (no sitemap file exist this is the dynamic one)
Thanks
Hi Joaquín, it looks like everything else works, like you Google News sitemap on http://ntrzacatecas.com/sitemap-news.xml for instance… How many posts does your site hold at this moment? I would not be surprised if your server runs out of memory loading ALL posts and pages while building the sitemap. Do you see any errors in the server/php error log files? Can you increase the memory limit in your server/account settings? If not, edit xml-sitemap.php line 49 from
define('XMLSF_MEMORY_LIMIT','128M');to
define('XMLSF_MEMORY_LIMIT','256M');for instance.
Hi,
I am getting ” The requested URL /sitemap.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.” when typing http://roadrunnerrunningshoes.info/sitemap.xml into my browser.
The plugin is activated. Any feedback is much appreciated.
Thanks,
Darryl
Hi Darryl,
You are using ‘Default’ permalinks.
With those ‘non-pretty URLs’ (your post URLs are like /?p=123) the sitemap feed will only be available via http://roadrunnerrunningshoes.info/?feed=sitemap . If you tell Google there is a sitemap available on that URL, it will be indexed without problem. But in light of better SEO, I would advise you to switch to another permalink structure like ‘Year, month and name’ or at least any custom structure with %postname% in it like /product/%postname%/ or something. But avoid using ONLY /%postname%/ because that is likely to cause confusing problems…
After this, the sitemap will be available via /sitemap.xml but more importantly there will be a fresh new http://roadrunnerrunningshoes.info/robots.txt plus your post and category titles will appear in the URLs which is a BIG plus for your sites search engine performance