Advanced Settings

Accessing Advanced Settings

Navigate to Sitemap → Advanced in your WordPress dashboard. This page provides fine-grained control over what content appears in your sitemap and how it’s generated.

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Content Exclusions

Exclude specific posts, pages, or products from appearing in your sitemap. Useful for landing pages, thank-you pages, or content you don’t want indexed.

Exclude by Post ID

Enter post IDs separated by commas to exclude specific content:

Finding Post IDs

To find a post’s ID:

1. Go to Posts or Pages in your dashboard
2. Hover over the item you want to exclude
3. Look at the URL in your browser’s status bar
4. Find the number after post= (e.g., post=123)

Common Exclusion Scenarios

Content Type	Why Exclude
Thank You pages	Post-conversion pages shouldn’t be indexed
Landing pages	PPC landing pages may have noindex requirements
Internal pages	Staff directories, internal resources
Duplicate content	Print versions, alternate formats
Staging content	Test pages not ready for indexing

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Taxonomy Exclusions

Exclude entire categories, tags, or custom taxonomy terms. All posts assigned to excluded terms will be removed from the sitemap.

Exclude by Category

Select categories to exclude from the dropdown list. Posts in these categories won’t appear in the sitemap.

Example Categories to Exclude	Reason
Internal	Company-only content
Archive	Outdated content kept for reference
Draft Ideas	Unpublished concept posts
Uncategorized	Default category with mixed content

Exclude by Tag

Enter tag slugs separated by commas:

noindex, internal-use, legacy-content

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Performance Tuning

Optimize sitemap generation for your server’s capabilities and site size.

Items Per Sitemap

Controls how many URLs are included in each sitemap file before splitting into multiple files.

Setting	Value
Default	1,000 URLs
Minimum	100 URLs
Maximum	50,000 URLs (protocol limit)

Recommended Values by Site Size

Site Size	Content Count	Recommended	Why
Small	<1,000 pages	1,000 (default)	Single sitemap file
Medium	1,000-10,000	2,500-5,000	Balance files vs. size
Large	10,000-50,000	10,000-25,000	Reduce HTTP requests
Enterprise	>50,000	25,000-50,000	Maximize efficiency

Memory Limit Considerations

Higher values require more memory during generation:

Items Per Sitemap	Approx. Memory	Shared Hosting
1,000	~32 MB	Safe
5,000	~64 MB	Usually safe
10,000	~128 MB	May need upgrade
25,000	~256 MB	VPS recommended
50,000	~512 MB	Dedicated server

Query Batch Size

Controls how many posts are queried at once during generation. Lower values reduce peak memory usage.

Setting	Value
Default	500 posts per batch
Low memory	100-200 posts
High performance	1,000+ posts

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Manual Regeneration

Force a complete sitemap rebuild, bypassing all caches.

When to Regenerate

• After bulk importing content
• After changing permalink structure
• After modifying exclusion rules
• After restoring from backup
• When troubleshooting sitemap issues

Regeneration Options

Option	Action
Regenerate All	Clears cache and rebuilds all sitemaps
Regenerate Posts	Rebuilds only the post sitemap
Regenerate Pages	Rebuilds only the page sitemap
Regenerate Products	Rebuilds only the product sitemap

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Debug Mode

Enable detailed logging to troubleshoot sitemap generation issues.

What Gets Logged

Log Entry	Information
Generation start	Timestamp, sitemap type
URL provider	Provider name, URLs returned
Exclusions applied	Post IDs excluded, reasons
Cache operations	Hits, misses, writes
Memory usage	Peak memory during generation
Timing	Duration of each phase
Errors	Any exceptions or warnings

Enabling Debug Mode

1. First, enable WordPress debug logging in wp-config.php:

define('WP_DEBUG', true);
define('WP_DEBUG_LOG', true);
define('WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY', false);

2. Go to Sitemap → Advanced
3. Check Enable Debug Mode
4. Click Save Settings
5. Trigger a sitemap request or regeneration
6. View logs at /wp-content/debug.log

Sample Debug Output

[10-Jan-2026 14:32:15] Developer Sitemap: Starting generation for type 'post'
[10-Jan-2026 14:32:15] Developer Sitemap: PostUrlProvider returned 1,247 URLs
[10-Jan-2026 14:32:15] Developer Sitemap: Excluded 3 posts by ID: 123, 456, 789
[10-Jan-2026 14:32:15] Developer Sitemap: Excluded 12 posts by category: 'internal'
[10-Jan-2026 14:32:16] Developer Sitemap: Final URL count: 1,232
[10-Jan-2026 14:32:16] Developer Sitemap: Generation complete in 0.847s
[10-Jan-2026 14:32:16] Developer Sitemap: Peak memory: 48.2 MB
[10-Jan-2026 14:32:16] Developer Sitemap: Cache written successfully

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Best Practices

Exclusion Strategy

• Be intentional — Only exclude content you genuinely don’t want indexed
• Use categories — Create an “Internal” or “No Index” category for bulk management
• Document exclusions — Keep a record of why specific content is excluded
• Review periodically — Check exclusions quarterly for relevance

Performance Optimization

• Start conservative — Begin with default values and increase if stable
• Monitor memory — Check server logs for memory warnings
• Enable caching — Always use caching in production
• Test changes — After adjusting, verify sitemap still generates correctly

Settings Summary

Setting	Default	Recommended Range
Excluded Post IDs	Empty	As needed
Excluded Categories	None	As needed
Excluded Tags	Empty	As needed
Items Per Sitemap	1,000	1,000–25,000
Query Batch Size	500	100–1,000
Debug Mode	Off	Off (production)