Google (XML) Sitemap Generator New Sitemap Format
Maintenance of this plugin has been taken over by Auctollo. You can find all up-to-date information on their website. If you need support, please use the forums or contact the new maintainer. Thanks!
About the new sitemap format
With the release of version 4 of the Google Sitemap Generator Plugin for WordPress, the type of the generated sitemap changed from a single sitemap file to a sitemap-index file with sub-sitemaps.
The old sitemap format
The old sitemap looked like the following table. It included all the content of your blog in a single file.
| URL | Priority | Changing | Last modified |
|---|---|---|---|
| http://www.blog.com/post1/ | 100% | Weekly | 2011-12-18 21:12 |
| http://www.blog.com/post3/ | 100% | Weekly | 2011-12-19 21:56 |
| http://www.blog.com/archives/ | 100% | Weekly | 2011-12-22 16:12 |
The new sitemap format
The new sitemap format looks like the following table. Instead of including all content in one huge file, the sitemap index-file links to several sub-sitemaps as described in the official Sitemaps Protocol.
| URL | Last modified |
|---|---|
| http://www.blog.com/sitemap-pt-post-2011-08.xml | 2011-08-12 19:45 |
| http://www.blog.com/sitemap-pt-post-2013-01.xml | 2013-01-18 12:38 |
| http://www.blog.com/sitemap-pt-pages-2013-01.xml | 2013-01-18 21:64 |
What are the benefits?
- The required resources on server-side are lower. Instead of generating a huge sitemap, only small pieces are served on request.
- Your sitemap can contain more content. Each sitemap is limited in size and the number of URLs inside.
- The sitemap loads faster. Since the sub-sitemaps are much smaller than the old sitemap, they obviously load faster.
- Less traffic. The search engines can see when the sub-sitemaps have been modified.
FAQ
- Do i need to submit each sub-sitemap to Google? No, the plugin will automatically tell Google about the index file. Google handles the sub-sitemaps automatically!
- Will the new sitemap format hurt my rankings? No. The new format is an official sitemap format defined by Google.
- For some reason, I don't like the new format. Can I change to the old one? There is not really a reason to not use the new format, but if you really don't like it, you can use the 3.x version of the plugin!