Running Alongside Other Sitemap Generators

WordPress core and most SEO plugins generate a sitemap of their own. Super Speedy Sitemaps does not need any of them switched off to install, and nothing errors when several run at once. Search engines, though, should be given one authoritative sitemap. Two sitemaps that disagree about the same URLs make Search Console reports hard to read and can send noindex URLs to Google.

This article shows how to make Super Speedy Sitemaps the one in charge.

The sitemaps you might have

Open your robots.txt (https://example.com/robots.txt) to see which ones are being advertised. Each generator adds its own Sitemap: line.

Step 1: switch off the other generators’ sitemaps

Turn off only the sitemap feature. The rest of the SEO plugin keeps working.

• Yoast SEO – Yoast SEO > Settings > Site features, switch off XML sitemaps.
• Rank Math – Rank Math SEO > Dashboard > Modules, switch off Sitemap.
• SEOPress – SEO > XML / HTML Sitemap, untick Enable XML Sitemap.
• All in One SEO – All in One SEO > Sitemaps, switch off Enable Sitemap.
• The SEO Framework – SEO > Sitemap Settings, turn off the optimised sitemap output.

Menu names vary a little between versions of these plugins. Look for the sitemap setting in each plugin’s own settings.

Step 2: switch off the WordPress core sitemap

WordPress core publishes /wp-sitemap.xml and adds it to robots.txt unless something switches it off. Super Speedy Sitemaps leaves it alone. Several SEO plugins disable it while their own sitemap is on, so it can reappear once you complete step 1.

To switch it off, add this to a small custom plugin or to your theme’s functions.php:

add_filter( 'wp_sitemaps_enabled', '__return_false' );

Then open /wp-sitemap.xml. It should return a 404.

Step 3: check robots.txt

Reload robots.txt. The only Sitemap: line left should be:

Sitemap: https://example.com/sitemapindex.xml

If your site has a physical robots.txt file in the web root, WordPress does not generate one, and no plugin can add lines to it. Edit the file and add the Sitemap: line by hand.

Step 4: update Search Console

In Google Search Console, open Sitemaps. Remove the old sitemap URLs (for example sitemap_index.xml or wp-sitemap.xml) and submit sitemapindex.xml. Do the same in Bing Webmaster Tools.

What stops working when you switch generators

• noindex settings. Yoast SEO, Rank Math, SEOPress and All in One SEO leave noindex content out of their own sitemaps. Super Speedy Sitemaps does not read their settings, so exclude those items on the XML Sitemaps tab. See Choosing What Goes in Your Sitemaps.
• The SEO Framework and Super Speedy Filters are read automatically. See SEO Plugin Integrations.
• Video or news sitemaps from an SEO add-on. Super Speedy Sitemaps has its own Google News sitemap. See Google News and Image Sitemaps. Check that anything else you rely on is covered before switching off an add-on.

Further reading

Related products

Super Speedy SitemapsAll other sitemaps were so slow, we built our own

Written for Super Speedy Sitemaps 1.11.17.