WordPress is an open-source Content Management System based on PHP and MySQL and is used to create a dynamic website. It was developed by Matt Mullenweg and Written in PHP. WordPress is one of the most popular that allows customizing and managing the website from its back-end content management system.
WordPress comes with the default XML sitemap feature which enables during the installation of the WordPress website. But it does not support advanced SEO practices.
In this article, we are going to see how we can disable the default WordPress XML sitemap easily.
What is an XML sitemap?
An XML sitemap helps the search engine easily read your website content and structure. So that the search engine can easily rank your website on the search engine result page.
It gives the content of the website in the machine readability form so that the search engine bot easily indexes the content of your website. It represents all the content of the website in XML format so that the search engine can easily discover your content.
How to create an XML sitemap in WordPress?
In WordPress, several methods exist to create the XML sitemap for your website. In this article, we will show two popular methods for creating the XML sitemap for your website.
Creating an XML sitemap without using any plugin:
Generally, WordPress comes up with the default XML sitemap. But this XML sitemap is very limited in its features and functionality.
Now WordPress has their own XML sitemap which makes all websites to take benefit from this feature. But the default XML sitemap of WordPress is very limited and gives very less features as compared to the custom one.
For showing the default XML sitemap of your WordPress website just type the wp-sitemap.xml at the end of your domain and an XML sitemap will appear on your screen.
This is the default XML sitemap of the WordPress website, but it is not flexible and rich in features.
Let us see how we can create the custom XML sitemap using the SEO plugin.
Creating an XML sitemap using the Yoast SEO plugin and disabling the default XML sitemap:
To create the XML sitemap using the Yoast SEO plugin, you first have to install the Yoast SEO plugin to your WordPress website. Yoast SEO is the best SEO plugin in the market and is very popular for its features and ease of use.
For setting the site map in the Yoast SEO plugin follow these simple steps.
Step 1: After the successful installation of the Yoast SEO plugin, It will start appearing on the WordPress dashboard.
Step 2: Now click on the Yoast SEO plugin in the WordPress dashboard.
After clicking on the Yoast SEO in the WordPress dashboard the Yoast SEO dashboard will appear on your screen.
Step 3: Now click on the “Features” tab for the XML sitemap.
Step 4: Scroll down you will get the “XML sitemap” in the feature tab of the Yoast SEO plugin. Turn it to “On” for enabling the XML sitemap on your WordPress website.
Now an XML sitemap is getting enabled on your WordPress website.
Step 5: For accessing the sitemap of your WordPress website, type the domain name of your website and then type “sitemap_index.xml“ just after the URL of your domain name. The Yoast SEO, an XML sitemap will appear on your screen.
For example: “https://yourwebsite.com/sitemap_index.xml”
This is how you can create and enable an XML sitemap on your WordPress website using the Yoast SEO plugin.
After enabling an XML sitemap using the Yoast SEO plugin it will disable the default sitemap on your WordPress website. To check whether the default sitemap is disabled on your WordPress website, type the domain name and then type “sitemap.xml“.
For example: “https://yourwebsite/sitemap.xml”
If the default sitemap is enabled, it will show you the default sitemap on your WordPress website and if it gets disabled on your WordPress website, then it will show the 404 page on your screen.
This is how you can disable the default WordPress XML sitemap on your WordPress website and enable the custom sitemap on your website.
