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XML Sitemap

Minorank SEO generates an XML sitemap index at /sitemap.xml with individual sub-sitemaps for each enabled content type. The sitemap is generated dynamically and always reflects the current state of your content.

Sitemap structure​

https://yoursite.com/sitemap.xml              ← sitemap index
https://yoursite.com/sitemap-posts.xml        ← posts
https://yoursite.com/sitemap-pages.xml        ← pages
https://yoursite.com/sitemap-categories.xml   ← categories
https://yoursite.com/sitemap-tags.xml         ← tags
https://yoursite.com/sitemap-products.xml     ← WooCommerce products (if active)
https://yoursite.com/sitemap-product_cat.xml  ← WooCommerce product categories (if active)

The main index (sitemap.xml) lists all enabled sub-sitemaps. Search engines discover the index and crawl each sub-sitemap independently.

Enabling and configuring the sitemap​

Go to Minorank SEO → Settings → XML Sitemap:

  1. Toggle Enable XML Sitemap to on.
  2. Toggle each sub-sitemap individually:
    • Posts → /sitemap-posts.xml
    • Pages → /sitemap-pages.xml
    • Categories → /sitemap-categories.xml
    • Tags → /sitemap-tags.xml
    • Products → /sitemap-products.xml (only shown when WooCommerce is active)
    • Product categories → /sitemap-product_cat.xml (WooCommerce only)
  3. When a sub-sitemap is enabled, its URL appears below the toggle as a clickable link.

Click Save All Settings to persist changes.

Each URL in the sitemap includes​

  • <loc> — the full URL
  • <lastmod> — the date the content was last modified
  • <changefreq> — how frequently the content typically changes

Submitting to Google Search Console​

  1. Open Google Search Console for the site.
  2. Go to Sitemaps in the left sidebar.
  3. In the Add a new sitemap field, enter sitemap.xml.
  4. Click Submit.

Google will crawl the sitemap index and discover all sub-sitemaps automatically.

:::tip Submit once You only need to submit the sitemap index URL (sitemap.xml) — not each individual sub-sitemap URL. Google discovers the sub-sitemaps from the index. :::

WooCommerce support​

When WooCommerce is active, the sitemap settings show additional toggles for WooCommerce products and product categories. These are hidden entirely when WooCommerce is not active.

Product pages in the sitemap include all published, non-draft, non-password-protected products. Out-of-stock products are included by default (they still have URLs worth indexing).

Excluding specific pages​

To exclude a specific page from the sitemap:

  1. Open the page in the Gutenberg or Elementor editor.
  2. Go to the Advanced tab in the Minorank SEO panel.
  3. Set Robots Meta to No Index.

Noindexed pages are automatically excluded from all sitemaps.

Troubleshooting​

Sitemap returns 404

WordPress rewrite rules may need to be flushed. Go to Settings → Permalinks in WordPress admin and click Save Changes — this regenerates the rewrite rules without changing your permalink structure.

Sitemap is empty

Confirm that:

  • The Enable XML Sitemap toggle is on in Settings.
  • At least one sub-sitemap (Posts, Pages, etc.) is enabled.
  • The enabled content types have published, publicly accessible content.

Old URLs appearing in the sitemap

The sitemap is dynamic — it queries the current published content on each request. If an old URL is appearing, it likely means the post is still published. Check All Posts / All Pages for draft or scheduled posts with that URL.

Next steps​

  • IndexNow — ping search engines instantly on publish, complementing the sitemap
  • Schema Markup — add structured data to the pages listed in your sitemap