An XML sitemap is a file listing the URLs on your site that you want search engines to crawl. It does not replace sound internal linking and it guarantees nothing: Google's own documentation says a sitemap does not guarantee that every item in it will be crawled and indexed. It is still one of the few direct channels between your site and Googlebot, and the only one that reports back to you with numbers in Search Console.
On WordPress, the question is no longer how to create one. Core has generated a sitemap by default since version 5.5, released in August 2020, and both Yoast SEO and Rank Math produce a more complete version. The real questions are which of them to use, what the file should contain, and how to tell Google about it.
What a sitemap actually does
Google finds your pages mainly by following links, internal and external. A sitemap supplements that mechanism on three points.
- Discovery. A recent page, one with few links pointing at it, or one buried deep in pagination appears in the sitemap before Googlebot reaches it through links.
- Recrawl scheduling. Since June 2023, Google has said it uses the
lastmodelement as a signal for scheduling the crawl of URLs it already knows, provided the date is reliable. Thepriorityandchangefreqelements, by contrast, are ignored. - Diagnosis. The Sitemaps report in Search Console shows how many URLs were read, and the Pages report can filter indexing down to sitemap-submitted URLs alone — the simplest way to spot a gap between what you want indexed and what Google has indexed.
Google qualifies all this by site size: its Search Central documentation treats a small site — roughly 500 pages or fewer — that is well linked and holds no particular media as able to do without one. For a small or medium-sized business, a sitemap is therefore not a ranking lever but a safety net. It costs little, and it earns its place as soon as the site publishes with any regularity.
The technical limits worth knowing
The Sitemaps protocol dates from 2005 and has been stable ever since. The constraints Google applies are few, but they explain why WordPress sitemaps are structured the way they are.
| Element | Limit | What it means in practice |
|---|---|---|
| A single sitemap file | 50 MB uncompressed, or 50,000 URLs | Beyond that, the file has to be split |
| A sitemap index file | Up to 50,000 loc entries |
One index can reference many sitemaps, hosted on the same site |
priority and changefreq |
Ignored by Google | No point configuring them; Yoast removed them some time ago |
lastmod |
Used when it is consistently and verifiably accurate | Do not force it to today's date, or Google stops trusting it |
| Accepted formats | XML, RSS/Atom, plain text | XML remains the most complete option for images, video and news |
On lastmod, Google refers to the last significant modification. Correcting a footer does not justify a new date; rewriting the main text does. WordPress and the SEO plugins use the post modification date, which stays honest as long as you do not bulk-resave your content.
Three ways to have a sitemap on WordPress
WordPress accounts for 58.8% of sites whose CMS is identified and 40.3% of all websites, according to W3Techs figures taken on 10 September 2026. The platform ships its own solution, and the SEO plugins each add theirs. Pick one and only one.
1. The native sitemap: /wp-sitemap.xml
Since WordPress 5.5, every active site exposes an index at https://your-site.com/wp-sitemap.xml. Per the core team's note, it covers all public and publicly queryable post types and taxonomies, plus author archives and the homepage, in batches of up to 2,000 URLs per file. Two limitations: it includes neither images, video nor the Google News format, and it has no settings screen, so excluding a page or a post type means adding a PHP filter. It switches off automatically if you tick the option asking search engines not to index the site, under Settings then Reading. Suited to a straightforward brochure site with no SEO plugin, where every public page is meant to be indexed.
2. Yoast SEO: /sitemap_index.xml
Yoast SEO, with more than 10 million active installations according to WordPress.org on 10 September 2026, generates an index at /sitemap_index.xml, split by content type: posts, pages, categories and so on. You enable it under Yoast SEO, then Settings, then Site features, with the XML sitemaps toggle in the Technical SEO section. Anything marked noindex is excluded automatically, so the sitemap and the indexing rules are driven from one place. When Yoast is active, /wp-sitemap.xml redirects to the Yoast index — the behaviour you can observe on this site, which runs that configuration.
3. Rank Math: /sitemap_index.xml as well
Rank Math, with more than 4 million active installations from the same source on the same date, uses the same address, /sitemap_index.xml. The settings sit under Rank Math SEO, then Sitemap Settings, with a choice per post type and per taxonomy, and a Links per sitemap option that the developer recommends setting to 200.
Telling Google about the sitemap
Google now recognises only two methods. The third, an HTTP ping to a submission endpoint, was retired: Google announced the change on 26 June 2023, explaining that the vast majority of submissions through it were spam. A plugin that still pings the old endpoint breaks nothing, and achieves nothing.
Method 1: the robots.txt file
Add a Sitemap: line anywhere in robots.txt. Yoast and Rank Math do it for you if you let WordPress generate the file. The advantage is that every engine reads it, Bing included, with no further action from you.
User-agent: *
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Allow: /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php
Sitemap: https://your-site.com/sitemap_index.xmlMethod 2: Search Console
This is the one to prefer, because it answers back. If the property is not yet verified, sort that out first; the rest of the indexing work depends on it anyway. Then:
- Open your property, then the Sitemaps report under Indexing.
- In the Add a new sitemap field, enter the index URL —
sitemap_index.xml, for example — and submit. - Check the status shown: success, has errors, or could not be fetched.
- Read the discovered pages column. For an index, it totals the URLs across every child sitemap. Compare that figure with the number of pages you actually want indexed.
Google states that the file is normally fetched straight away, but that crawling the URLs inside it can take time and that not all of them will necessarily be crawled. Submit the index only: child sitemaps are read automatically, and nothing needs resubmitting each time you publish.
What belongs in a sitemap, and what does not
A sitemap is a statement of intent: it tells Google which pages you want indexed, and every inconsistency muddies that message. On WordPress, the same faults come up again and again in audits.
- Noindex, redirected or 404 URLs left in the file. This usually follows a WordPress redesign, or a page deindexed without being pulled from the sitemap. The Pages report flags them; the plugin configuration then has to be corrected.
- Taxonomies that serve no purpose. Tags attached to a single post, author archives on a one-author site, post format archives. Take them out of the sitemap and set them to noindex.
- Media treated as pages. Attachment pages have no business in a sitemap. Yoast and Rank Math both offer to redirect them to the file itself.
- Pages that are missing. A custom post type — products, projects, listings — declared non-public by the theme or a plugin never reaches the sitemap. Common, and rarely noticed without a technical audit.
Two special cases. On a WooCommerce shop, exclude the basket, checkout and account pages along with filter URLs. On a large catalogue, lower the number of URLs per file: a sitemap that takes too long to generate on shared hosting can exceed Googlebot's patience and come back as could not be fetched, which makes server response time a sitemap problem as much as a visitor-facing one.
In short: the decision
- Brochure site with no SEO plugin: the native sitemap is enough. Submit
/wp-sitemap.xmlin Search Console. - Site running Yoast or Rank Math: let the plugin handle the sitemap, switch off the taxonomies you do not need, and submit
/sitemap_index.xml. - Either way: once a quarter, compare the discovered pages figure with the number of indexed pages in the Pages report.
A sitemap will not push your site up the results. It will stop you finding out, far too late, that part of your site was never seen by Google at all.
Common questions
Where is my WordPress sitemap?
With no SEO plugin, WordPress has generated an index at /wp-sitemap.xml since version 5.5. With Yoast SEO or Rank Math, the index sits at /sitemap_index.xml and the native address redirects to it. You can also read it from your robots.txt file, on the line beginning with Sitemap:.
Does a sitemap improve rankings in Google?
No, it is not a ranking factor. Google says a sitemap helps it discover URLs, without guaranteeing that they will be crawled or indexed. Its value is making sure every page that matters is known to Google, and giving you a report in Search Console to check that against.
Do I need to submit each child sitemap separately?
No. Submitting the index file — sitemap_index.xml or wp-sitemap.xml — is enough. Google then reads every sitemap referenced inside that index automatically, and the discovered pages column totals their URLs.
Should I resubmit the sitemap after every post?
No. Google re-reads the sitemaps it already knows about, and the old ping submission endpoint was retired in 2023. What matters is that the lastmod date reflects the genuine date of the last significant change to each page, rather than being reset on every save.
What should I do if Search Console says the sitemap could not be fetched?
Check the exact URL in a browser first, then confirm the file is not blocked by robots.txt, by password protection or by a firewall. On larger sites, a sitemap that takes too long to generate can also exceed Google's timeout, in which case reduce the number of URLs per file.
Which should I use: the WordPress, Yoast or Rank Math sitemap?
One at a time. The native sitemap suits a small site with no SEO plugin. If you already run Yoast or Rank Math, let the plugin handle it: noindex content is excluded automatically, and post types and taxonomies can be configured without touching code.