With over 60% market share, WordPress powers over 40% of all websites on the internet. As a webmaster with over 15 years of experience, I‘ve seen firsthand how important it is to optimize your WordPress site for search engines.
One key optimization is properly managing your XML sitemaps. Sitemaps make it easy for search bots to crawl your content. But having multiple sitemaps can confuse search engines and actually hurt your rankings.
That‘s why I recommend disabling the default WordPress sitemap if you already use an SEO plugin like Yoast or All in One SEO.
In this detailed guide, I‘ll compare the default WordPress sitemap to SEO plugin sitemaps. I‘ll also show you two easy methods to disable the default sitemap on your site, using either a plugin or code snippet.
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Why Disabling the Default Sitemap Matters for SEO
The default XML sitemap feature was introduced in WordPress 5.5. It automatically generates a basic sitemap showing your pages and posts.
This helps search engines discover your content. But there are two big downsides:
1. It lacks advanced features – The WordPress sitemap only includes pages and posts. But SEO plugins can also generate sitemaps for images, videos, news, and more. This helps search bots better crawl your site.
2. You can end up with duplicate sitemaps – Having multiple sitemaps for the same URLs confuses search engines. I‘ve seen sites get penalized for this when the sitemaps have contradicting data.
That‘s why disabling the default sitemap is crucial if you already use an SEO plugin.
Let‘s compare the default WordPress sitemap to what SEO plugins offer:
| Feature | Default WP Sitemap | SEO Plugin Sitemap |
|---|---|---|
| Pages & Posts | ✅ | ✅ |
| Images | ❌ | ✅ |
| Videos | ❌ | ✅ |
| News | ❌ | ✅ |
| RSS Feeds | ❌ | ✅ |
| Automatic Submission | ❌ | ✅ |
As you can see, SEO plugins provide a much more comprehensive sitemap. This leads to better indexing and higher rankings according to experts like Moz.
Now let‘s get into how to easily disable the default sitemap.
Method 1: Using an SEO Plugin (Recommended)
The easiest way to disable the default WordPress sitemap is by using an SEO plugin like All in One SEO.
AIOSEO is the best SEO plugin on the market right now. Over 3 million websites use it to optimize their WordPress sites, including my own sites.
Once installed, AIOSEO will automatically replace the default sitemap with theirs. Here‘s how to set it up:
- Install and activate the AIOSEO plugin.
- Go to AIOSEO » Sitemap in your WP dashboard.
- Make sure the "Enable Sitemap" switch is on.
And you‘re done! AIOSEO will now handle sitemap generation and submission.
I recommend enabling all the advanced sitemap types like video and RSS feeds. This ensures search engines can fully crawl your site.
The best part about using AIOSEO is they take care of automatically notifying search engines about sitemap updates. This saves you time and effort.
Method 2: Using a Code Snippet
You can also disable the default sitemap using the following PHP code snippet:
add_filter( ‘wp_sitemaps_enabled‘, ‘__return_false‘ );To implement this, install the WPCode plugin. Then create a new PHP snippet with the above code on auto insert.
The downside to this method is you miss out on the advanced XML sitemap features that top SEO plugins provide.
So I recommend using Method 1 and AIOSEO instead for the best results. But the code snippet works well if you don‘t want an SEO plugin.
Key Takeaways
Here are the key takeaways from this guide:
- Disable the default WordPress sitemap to avoid duplicate sitemaps that can hurt SEO.
- Use an SEO plugin like AIOSEO for advanced sitemaps and automatic submissions.
- You can also disable the default sitemap with a simple code snippet using WPCode.
- Proper sitemap management is crucial for search engines to crawl your site.
Optimizing your XML sitemaps should be a top priority. I hope this guide helps you improve your WordPress SEO rankings. Let me know if you have any other questions!
