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WP Visibility

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Submit Your Sitemap

The sitemap index is at /sitemap.xml and is named in the robots.txt WordPress generates. Submit that one address in Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools; the per-type files are linked from it.

Updated September 27, 2026

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Your sitemap index is https://your-site.com/sitemap.xml. In Google Search Console, open Sitemaps, paste that address into Add a new sitemap and click Submit; in Bing Webmaster Tools, open Sitemaps and submit the same address. The index lists the per-type files, so that one address is all you submit. WP Visibility also adds a Sitemap: line to the robots.txt WordPress generates, except on a site set to discourage search engines (Settings → Reading). Google and Bing both read that line, so they can find the index without a submission (Google, Bing, checked September 27, 2026).

Find it

With the Sitemaps module on (it is on by default), the settings screen shows a View sitemap.xml link in the Sitemaps section. The index links one file per post type that has published posts (pages always get one) and per taxonomy that has terms in use, numbered from 1:

/sitemap.xml
/sitemap-posts-post-1.xml
/sitemap-posts-page-1.xml
/sitemap-terms-category-1.xml
/sitemap-terms-post_tag-1.xml

The files are generated on request and cached; no sitemap file is written to disk, and the addresses work on plain permalinks too. WordPress’s own /wp-sitemap.xml is turned off while the module is on and comes back if you turn it off. The XML carries an X-Robots-Tag: noindex, follow header. That header applies to the file it is sent with, so it asks search engines not to show the sitemap itself in results; the listed pages keep their own robots settings (Google, checked September 27, 2026).

What it lists

  • Every published post, page and public custom post type entry, except attachments, password-protected posts, and anything set to Noindex.
  • Term archives (categories, tags, custom taxonomies) that contain at least one post, minus noindexed terms and taxonomies.
  • Each post’s modified date as lastmod. Terms carry no date.
  • The featured image of each post when Include featured images is on, which it is by default.
  • Up to the number set in URLs per sitemap page per file (1,000 by default, 2,000 at most); larger sets continue in -2.xml and so on.

Video and news sitemaps are not generated.

Submit it

Google Search Console. Choose the property (you need owner permission on it), open the Sitemaps report, paste https://your-site.com/sitemap.xml into Add a new sitemap and click Submit. The report accepts a sitemap index and shows when Google last read it and how many pages it discovered. Submission is a hint to read the file; it does not promise that every listed page is crawled or indexed (Sitemaps report help, Build and submit a sitemap, checked September 27, 2026).

Bing Webmaster Tools. Open Sitemaps, click Submit sitemap, enter the full address. Bing accepts sitemap index files (Bing Webmaster Tools help, Bing Webmaster Blog, checked September 27, 2026).

If you verify either service with a meta tag, paste only the verification code, not the whole meta tag, into the Google Search Console or Bing Webmaster Tools field of the Site verification section, then finish verification on the service.

Exclude a post type or taxonomy

  • A post type: tick it under Exclude post types from the sitemap in the Sitemaps section. The pages stay indexable; they are simply not listed. A type ticked under Indexing → Noindex these post types leaves the sitemap too.
  • A taxonomy: there is no separate sitemap setting. Tick it under Indexing → Noindex these taxonomy archives, which removes its archives from both search and the sitemap.
  • One page: set it to Noindex, or leave it indexable and accept that it is listed. There is no per-page “hide from sitemap” setting that keeps the page indexable.

Refresh a stale sitemap

Files are cached for up to a week. Saving or deleting a post, or editing or deleting a term, clears the cache, and the next request rebuilds the file. Changing a setting under Sitemaps or Indexing does not clear it. If a change arrived that way, or reached the database some other way, and the sitemap still shows the old state, run:

wp visibility flush

It marks the cache stale; the files regenerate on their next request. A page cache or CDN in front of your site may hold its own copy for as long as its rules say, so purge that too if the live file lags.

There is no sitemap ping to Google or Bing after a publish. The optional IndexNow module (off by default) sends a post’s URL to the shared IndexNow endpoint when the post is published or updated while published. The engines that take part, including Bing and Yandex, share each submission; Google is not listed among them (IndexNow FAQ, checked September 27, 2026). The automatic ping skips noindexed and password-protected posts.