Configuration Walkthrough

A detailed guide to every setting in Developer Sitemap.

General Settings

Enable Sitemap

This master switch controls whether your sitemap is publicly accessible.

State	Behavior
Enabled (default)	Sitemap is accessible at `/sitemap.xml`
Disabled	Sitemap URLs return 404 errors

Note: Disabling the sitemap preserves all your settings. When you re-enable it, everything returns to your configured state.

Content Types

Select which content types to include in your sitemap. Each enabled type generates its own sitemap file linked from the main index.

Standard Content Types

Option	Default	Description
Posts	Enabled	Standard WordPress blog posts (`post` post type)
Pages	Enabled	Static WordPress pages (`page` post type)
Taxonomies	Disabled	Category and tag archive pages
Authors	Disabled	Author archive pages for users with published content

WooCommerce Content Types

When WooCommerce is active, additional options appear:

Option	Default	Description
Products	Enabled	Published WooCommerce products

Automatic Exclusions: Products with “hidden” catalog visibility are automatically excluded from the sitemap, regardless of this setting.

Custom Post Types

If your theme or plugins register public custom post types, they appear in this section. Enable each one you want included in the sitemap.

Priority Settings

Priority is a hint to search engines about the relative importance of pages on your site. Values range from 0.0 (lowest) to 1.0 (highest).

Important: Priority only affects relative importance within your own site. It does not influence how your pages rank compared to other websites.

Default Priority Values

Content Type	Default	Recommended Range
Homepage	1.0	0.8 – 1.0
Posts	0.6	0.4 – 0.8
Pages	0.6	0.4 – 0.8
Products	0.7	0.5 – 0.9
Taxonomies	0.4	0.2 – 0.5
Authors	0.3	0.1 – 0.4

Priority Guidelines

0.8 – 1.0: Most important pages (homepage, key landing pages, flagship products)
0.5 – 0.7: Standard content (regular posts, pages, products)
0.3 – 0.4: Supporting content (category pages, archives)
0.1 – 0.2: Low priority (author pages, tag archives)

Change Frequency

Change frequency tells search engines how often your content typically changes. This helps them decide how frequently to re-crawl your pages.

Value	Best For
`always`	Live content that changes every visit (stock tickers, real-time data)
`hourly`	Breaking news, frequently updated feeds
`daily`	Active blogs, news sites
`weekly`	Standard sites (default for most content)
`monthly`	Documentation, reference content
`yearly`	Static reference material
`never`	Archived content that will not change

Note: Search engines treat change frequency as a hint, not a directive. They may crawl more or less frequently based on their own algorithms.

Output Options

Control which optional elements are included in your sitemap entries.

Option	Default	XML Element
Include Last Modified	Enabled	`<lastmod>`
Include Change Frequency	Enabled	`<changefreq>`
Include Priority	Enabled	`<priority>`

Disabling these options reduces the sitemap file size but provides less guidance to search engines. Most sites should leave all options enabled.

Cache Settings

Caching improves performance by storing generated sitemaps instead of rebuilding them on every request.

Cache Options

Option	Default	Description
Enable Cache	Enabled	Store generated sitemaps using WordPress transients
Cache Duration	3600	Seconds to cache sitemap (1 hour)
GZIP Compression	Disabled	Compress sitemap responses for faster delivery

Cache Duration Recommendations

Site Type	Recommended Duration
News/frequently updated	1800 (30 minutes)
Standard blogs	3600 (1 hour)
Business/corporate sites	7200 (2 hours)
Static/portfolio sites	86400 (24 hours)

Automatic Invalidation: The cache automatically clears when you publish, update, or delete content. You can also manually regenerate from the Dashboard.