External Pages

Some pages on your domain are not WordPress content: a static landing page, a separate app at /app/, a legacy section served by another system, or a shop running on a different platform under the same domain. WordPress does not know they exist, so no WordPress sitemap lists them. The external pages sitemap fills that gap.

Turn it on

1. Go to Super Speedy > Sitemaps > XML Sitemaps.
2. Under Enable following sitemaps, tick External (non-WordPress) pages.
3. Click Save Changes.

An External pages section appears on the same tab as soon as you tick the box, and after saving, page_external.xml is listed in your sitemap index.

Add a page

1. In the External pages section, click Add new page.
2. Fill in the form:
   • Absolute URL to page – the full URL, for example https://example.com/app/. It must start with your Site Address, and each URL can only be added once.
   • Change frequency – pick a value, or choose Calculate using “Last modified”.
   • Priority – 0.1 to 1.0.
   • Last modified (time is optional) – the date the page last changed, in your site’s local timezone (Settings > General).
3. Click Save Changes in the dialog.

Click Show/Hide external pages to see the list, with an edit and a remove button for each entry.

Keep “Last modified” honest

Google uses <lastmod> to decide whether to re-crawl a page. Update the date when the page changes, and leave it unchanged when it has not. A date that moves without the page changing teaches Google to ignore it.

Adding many pages, or pages that change often

Typing pages in one at a time suits a handful of URLs. For dozens, or for URLs another system generates, add them in code with the sssm_gxs_external_pages filter. See Developer Reference. Pages added in code and pages added on this screen appear together in page_external.xml.

If the other system already produces its own sitemap file, add that whole file to your index instead with sssm_gxs_external_sitemaps, described in the same article.

After adding pages

If caching is on, click Flush Cache so page_external.xml and the index rebuild with the new entries.

Further reading

Related products

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

Written for Super Speedy Sitemaps 1.11.17.