The 7 Best Sitemap Plugins For WordPress Website

Posted on January 11th, 2022

Well, the name itself is a giveaway! A sitemap is a map of your website that contains a list of your site’s URLs. It helps search engines like Google and Bing crawl your website by providing a “map” of the content you would like to index. A more effective way for search engines to index your site, rather than following internal links. The purpose of sitemaps is to help search engines index your website content without crawling your web pages. After you create one for your website, you can submit it to search engines to update their indexing.

A sitemap is a list made with XML that tells search engines about your content and the structure of your website. They include page URLs, when the content was last modified, the type of content, etc. Post types are identified, and you have the option to keep post types from indexing if you want to keep them private.

Search engines such as Google can crawl your website independently, but this takes time. Providing a sitemap ensures that search engines have all the information they need to index your website. The XML document can be created by hand, but a WordPress sitemap plugin is the best way to create a sitemap. Sitemap plugins inform search engines of changes on your website, so their information is always up to date. They’re easy to use, and there are plenty to choose from.

Sitemaps are plain text documents that both humans and machines can read. They can be written in either HTML or XML, but sitemaps for search engines tend to be written in XML. Sitemaps can do wonders for your search rankings, but they’re also a major time-suck to make manually. It’s recommended that you submit a new sitemap every time you add a new page, post, or media item to your site. For website owners who make frequent updates to site structure, such as bloggers, it’s a lot of work to write a new sitemap and send it off every single time.

This is where WordPress plugins come into play. A quality sitemap plugin will bundle your URLs into a sitemap for you, and no coding is needed on your part. Some plugins will also submit your sitemaps to services like Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools for indexing. Some plugins can create image or video sitemaps as well.

Setting up a sitemap for your website is extremely important. However, doing so might seem a little intimidating, and updating them manually could become a hassle. But alas, WordPress offers sitemap plugins that you can install to generate your Sitemap with a few clicks quickly. And in this article, we will look into some of the best plugins in this department.

The list contains mostly free plugins with a few freemium ones. However, regardless of the price, we have ensured that all these plugins will get the essential job done for you.

Once installed, these plugins automatically pick up new pages that you create and add them to its list. All you have to do on your part is submit the Sitemap to Google Webmaster console, Bing Webmaster tool, and so on. Furthermore, they also set up sitemaps for even your images and videos.

List of Best Sitemap plugins

1. Sitemap by click5.
2. Simple Sitemap.
3. Simple Wp Sitemap.
4. Google Sitemap by BestWebSoft.
5. Google XML Sitemaps.
6. Yoast SEO.
7. All in One SEO Pack.

1. Sitemap by click5

In addition to XML-based Sitemap, the Sitemap by click5 plugin should be your number 1 choice if you also want to include HTML-based sitemaps. While XML sitemaps are helpful for search engines, HTML sitemaps are equally beneficial for visitors to navigate pages easily. This can help increase user interactivity with the site and increase the site’s SEO performance indirectly. You can add an HTML sitemap on any page by using a shortcode. The plugin even allows excluding any particular post or page from the Sitemap. Best WordPress plugin to generate and customize HTML & XML sitemaps for your website.

HTML sitemaps are helpful to website visitors to navigate and find pages on your website, while XML sitemaps help search engines to crawl your website, which leads to higher SEO rankings.

Setting up a sitemap for your website is extremely important. However, doing so might seem a little intimidating, and updating them manually could become a hassle. But alas, WordPress offers sitemap plugins that you can install to generate your Sitemap with a few clicks quickly. And in this article, we will look into some of the best plugins in this department. Sitemaps can do wonders for your search rankings, but they’re also a major time-suck to make manually. It’s recommended that you submit a new sitemap every time you add a new page, post, or media item to your site. For website owners who make frequent updates to site structure, such as bloggers, it’s a lot of work to write a new sitemap and send it off every single time. So, let’s discuss the basic features of this plugin in brief.

Features:

• You can generate a site map that includes your custom post type and specify how they are displayed.
• You can easily exclude subpages, posts, or custom posts you don’t want to publish on the site map.
• If you want to add custom links to your map or add a unique link – you can also do it using our plugin.
• HTML Sitemap.
• XML Sitemaps.
• Custom Post Types support.
• WooCommerce support.
• Blacklist and custom sorting.
• Adding custom links.
• Generates robots.txt file.

Pricing Details:

Sitemap by click5 is a very effective Sitemap plugin for WordPress. The plugin is free to use, but it also provides a premium version. It is available in the WordPress plugin directory for free. The free version has all the essential features to create an effective Sitemap plugin system.

2. Simple Sitemap

Simple Sitemap helps improve your SEO ranking by automatically generating an HTML sitemap of your content. Add a full sitemap literally in seconds. No coding or setup is required. It works straight out of the box and includes plenty of flexible customization options. The latest version also includes a responsive tabbed layout option that looks fantastic. We’re super excited to share this with you. The most popular HTML sitemap available for WordPress just got even simpler to use. You can now build and preview your Sitemap visually directly in the post editor!

There’s no need to use confusing and complicated shortcodes anymore. Constant swapping back and forth between the editor and front end is a thing of the past.

Until this point, we’ve covered plugins that focus on generating sitemaps in XML, which are ideal for submitting to search engines for indexing. Sitemaps can also aid visitors by giving a clear list of all your web pages — to navigate, and they can click a URL in the list. This is where HTML sitemaps come in handy. Simple Sitemap is a free plugin that creates and adds a basic HTML sitemap to your website. You can place a sitemap with two available blocks and five shortcodes and configure your map inside the WordPress editor. This way, visitors have a convenient alternative to navigating your website.

Simple Sitemap adds a good old-fashioned HTML sitemap to your website! There are flexible options to include only the content you want to include and format the output. It takes just seconds to add a sitemap to your website. Simply include the [simple-sitemap] shortcode on a page to display a dynamically generated sitemap. It’s that easy! This gives your visitors an efficient way to view ALL your site’s content in ONE place. So, let’s discuss the basic features of this plugin in brief.

Features:

• Build Sitemap visually. No Shortcodes are needed!
• Preview sitemap directly in the editor.
• Choose from standard or tabbed layouts.
• Beautiful 100% CSS sitemap tabs. (no JavaScript)
• Display any number of posts or pages.
• List sitemap items in ascending or descending order.
• Optionally display post excerpt.
• Toggle post type label.
• Display individual sitemap items as text or links.
• Sitemap shortcodes are available as an alternative to blocks.
• Plugin settings to manage parent page links.
• Intelligent script handling.
• Support for multiple sitemaps per page.

Additional features

• Exclude specific posts/pages.
• Include ONLY specified posts/pages.
• Customize styles via the user interface.
• Filter hooks for fine-grain control over Sitemap.
• Two sitemap blocks (3 more will be added soon).
• Five sitemap shortcodes.
• Shortcode aliases for quicker entry.
• No coding is required for customizations.
• Add any custom post types to a sitemap.
• List posts sorted by any custom taxonomies.
• The tabbed layout is fully responsive.
• Advanced tabbed layout options.
• Set dynamic max and responsive breakpoint widths for tabs.
• Horizontal sitemap layout.

Pricing Details:

Simple Sitemap is a very effective Sitemap plugin for WordPress. The plugin is free to use, but it also provides a premium version. It is available in the WordPress plugin directory for free. The free version has all the essential features to create an effective Sitemap plugin system. It offers premium plans. The developers also offer a premium version for advanced users starting at USD 29.

3. Simple Wp Sitemap

Simple Wp Sitemap is a sitemap plugin that generates both an XML and an HTML sitemap. Both sitemaps are updated automatically every time you publish a post or page. This means they’re always up to date and that you only have to install and activate the plugin once. Simple Wp also supports the option to add pages to the sitemaps that aren’t part of your original WordPress site. For instance, if you create a small HTML file and upload it to your server, and want it to be included in them, it’s easily done.

You can also block pages that you don’t want to be included. Until this point, we’ve covered plugins that focus on generating sitemaps in XML, which are ideal for submitting to search engines for indexing. Sitemaps can also aid visitors by giving a clear list of all your web pages to navigate, and they can just click a URL in the list. This is where HTML sitemaps come in handy. Simple Sitemap is a free plugin that creates and adds a basic HTML sitemap to your website.

You can place a sitemap with two available blocks and five shortcodes and configure your map inside the WordPress editor. This way, visitors have a convenient alternative to navigating your website. Simple Wp Sitemap is a WordPress sitemap plugin that dynamically generates both an XML and an HTML sitemap. These two are updated automatically every time someone’s visiting them. Meaning they will always be up to date and just work without you ever having to do anything (except activate the plugin).

The sitemaps are generated dynamically instead of being created as actual files because it’s much more solid. No more problems with having to access, create or delete files. Instead, they’re just presented when needed to.

Both sitemaps are multisite and multilanguage compatible. Every site gets its Sitemap, and all multilanguage URLs are included in them. The sitemaps are also mobile-friendly and work well with caching plugins! The plugin works automatically on Apache servers, but it’s also possible to get Simple Wp Sitemap. A sitemap is a list of the pages of a website and works pretty much like a map. It’s a good thing for both search engines that want to find all relevant pages and index them and for users who might have a hard time navigating a site. When users can’t find what they’re looking for, they get irritated, and nobody wants that. Having a sitemap available is a way to make it easy for them.

Simple Sitemap helps improve your SEO ranking by automatically generating an HTML sitemap of your content. Add a full sitemap literally in seconds. No coding or setup is required. It works straight out of the box and includes plenty of flexible customization options. The latest version also includes a responsive tabbed layout option that looks fantastic. We’re super excited to share this with you. The most popular HTML sitemap available for WordPress just got even simpler to use. You can now build and preview your Sitemap visually directly in the post editor!

There’s no need to use confusing and complicated shortcodes anymore. Constant swapping back and forth between the editor and front end is a thing of the past. So, let’s discuss the basic features of this plugin in brief.

Features:

• Display individual sitemap items as text or links.
• Sitemap shortcodes are available as an alternative to blocks.
• Plugin settings to manage parent page links.
• Intelligent script handling.
• Support for multiple sitemaps per page.
• Build Sitemap visually. No Shortcodes are needed!
• Preview sitemap directly in the editor.
• Choose from standard or tabbed layouts.
• Beautiful 100% CSS sitemap tabs. (no JavaScript)
• Display any number of posts or pages.
• List sitemap items in ascending or descending order.
• Sort by field.
• Optionally display post excerpt.
• Toggle post type label.
• Add any custom post types to a sitemap.
• List posts sorted by any custom taxonomies.
• The tabbed layout is fully responsive.
• Advanced tabbed layout options.
• Set dynamic max and responsive breakpoint widths for tabs.
• Horizontal sitemap layout.
• Exclude specific posts/pages.
• Include ONLY specified posts/pages.
• Customize styles via the user interface.
• Filter hooks for fine-grain control over Sitemap.
• Two sitemap blocks (3 more will be added soon).
• Five sitemap shortcodes.
• Shortcode aliases for quicker entry.
• No coding is required for customizations.

Pricing Details:

Simple Wp Sitemap is a very effective Sitemap plugin for WordPress. The plugin is free to use, but it also provides a premium version. It is available in the WordPress plugin directory for free. The free version has all the essential features to create an effective Sitemap plugin system. It offers premium plans.

4- Google Sitemap by BestWebSoft.

Google Sitemap plugin automatically generates an XML sitemap for your WordPress website and helps search engines index your blog. The plugin helps web crawlers extract your website’s structure more effectively. The plugin supports default WordPress pages and custom URLs, which is ideal if you upload custom files to your server that is not part of your WordPress installation. Sitemap by BestWebSoft supports standard pages, custom post types, and taxonomies. It can be integrated with your Google Webmaster Tools account. Create sitemaps for your media. The pro version adds features that support custom URLs, multisite, exclude posts, and set the frequency of your changes. The free version has tools not found in other plugins, but some of the most common features are only available in the pro version.

Google Sitemap by BestWebSoft is a freemium plugin. This means that although the plugin is free to download, to access some of the more advanced features, you will have to buy the pro version. Essentially, this WordPress sitemap plugin works like all the other ones discussed above. It creates a sitemap for search engine crawlers to index and also helps keep your Sitemap up-to-date. For free, this sitemap plugin for WordPress will add a host of different WordPress post types and pages into the Sitemap and help you connect with your Google Webmaster Tools account.

But with the pro version, you get powerful features like the option to add external sitemap files, the ability to exclude specific pages from the Sitemap, and the option to add custom URLs to the Sitemap. Sitemap plugin automatically generates XML sitemap for your WordPress website and helps search engines index your blog. Such a sitemap file helps web crawlers extract your website’s structure more effectively. The plugin supports default WordPress pages as well as custom URLs. It can also be added to your Google Webmaster Tools account.

Our second dedicated sitemap plugin on this list, Sitemap by BestWebSoft, helps WordPress admins easily and quickly generate XML sitemaps to send to search engines. URLs from pages, posts, categories, tags, and custom post types and taxonomies are all added to your maps. This plugin can also build media sitemaps and connects to Google Search Console, so you can easily push sitemaps to Google. So, let’s discuss the basic features of this plugin in brief.

Features:

• Integrates with Google Webmaster Tools
• Custom post types
• Creates media sitemaps
• Compatible with their Multilanguage plugin
• Pro version supports custom URLs
• The pro version supports multisite
• Pro version includes tools to exclude pages and posts
• Add a path to your sitemap file in robots.txt automatically
• You can also Add media sitemap
• Add canonical URLs to pages and posts
• Set the maximum number of URLs in one sitemap file
• Add alternate language pages using the Multilanguage plugin
• Compatible with the latest WordPress version
• Incredibly simple settings for fast setup without modifying code
• Detailed step-by-step documentation and videos

Pro Features

• Add external sitemap files
• Exclude certain pages or post types from your sitemap file.
• Configure all subsites on the network
• Add custom URLs to the sitemap file
• Get the answer to your support question within one business day

Pricing Details:

Google Sitemap by BestWebSoft is a very effective Sitemap plugin for WordPress. The plugin is free to use, but it also provides a premium version. It is available in the WordPress plugin directory for free. The free version has all the essential features to create an effective Sitemap plugin system. It offers premium plans. Free for basic features, $20.98 per year for pro features.

5. Google XML Sitemaps

The Google XML Sitemaps is one of the most popular free WordPress plugins in this category. The plugin has been around for over nine years now, and it has grown to have a large user base. It can quickly help you create sitemaps for search engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo, and Ask.com.This WordPress sitemap plugin is designed to work with all kinds of WordPress-generated pages, including custom URLs. It can also automatically notify search engines when you add a new page or publish a new post. Furthermore, its lightweight and efficient coding will not slow down your website, nor will it cause any problem.

Google XML Sitemaps is one of the oldest, most popular, and highest-rated sitemap plugins available. It includes multiple languages, and it’s compatible with multisite WordPress installations. It calculates the priority of posts based on their number of comments. You can set it to prioritize by comment average or disable the priority feature.

It also includes filters that allow other plugins to add their pages to the Sitemap. Sitemaps include post types, taxonomies, and custom post types. Include or exclude items, change the frequencies, and change the priority of each post type.

As the name suggests, this plugin generates XML (and HTML) sitemaps that help your pages and posts get indexed by Google and other search engines. It’s a great choice for WordPress users who want sitemaps without the baggage of a comprehensive SEO plugin.

Google XML Sitemaps is easy to use but very capable nonetheless — it supports all kinds of WordPress posts, including general posts or any custom post type, and allows for basic and advanced customization in its settings menu. For example, you can set the plugin to notify Google and Bing when your content updates automatically. The plugin has been refined over nine years and is rated as one of the best plugins in the WordPress repository. It does exactly what it advertises – provides a complete XML sitemap for search engines. It will not break your site, slow it down or conflict with other plugins. So, let’s discuss the basic features of this plugin in brief.

Features:

• Includes paged links for Archives, Authors, Categories, and Tags posts.
• Set global sitemap default values for priority and update frequencies.
• Set sitemap value for priority and frequency at the category, tag, post, and page level.
• Automatic daily auto ping when you have updated pages/posts in WordPress.
• Add latest pages/posts RSS feed to the page header.
• Automatically adds sitemap entries to your robots.txt file.
• Add custom entries to your robots.txt file.
• Compatible with WooCommerce, bbPress, BuddyPress, and more.
• HTML, RSS and Google XML Sitemap formats.
• News sitemap and image sitemap support.
• Sitemap index support for larger websites.
• List all your WordPress Pages, Posts, Archives, Authors, Categories, and Tags.
• Support for custom post types and taxonomy.

Pricing Details:

Google XML Sitemaps is a very effective Sitemap plugin for WordPress. The plugin is free to use, but it also provides a premium version. It is available in the WordPress plugin directory for free. The free version has all the essential features to create an effective Sitemap plugin system.

6. Yoast SEO

Yoast SEO offers in-built WordPress Sitemap functionality. The plugin is used to improve the SEO of your site, so you can start getting more organic traffic. Yoast SEO handles that nicely since having a navigable sitemap is a crucial part of the process. The plugin will set up an XML sitemap for your website within a couple of clicks. For this reason alone, one of the best choices is to build a sitemap for your WordPress website. It’s available in both a free version and a premium version with expanded features.

The free version includes the sitemap features, which are enabled by default. You have control over the number of sitemap entries. Mark post types that you don’t want to appear in your Sitemap. Add an external sitemap if you have sitemaps for other parts of your website. Once you activate and enable the sitemap feature, Yoast SEO generates an XML sitemap containing links to your website content. This Sitemap will automatically refresh any time you change your content, such as adding or removing a page or post. The sitemaps created in the free version of Yoast SEO will accommodate posts, pages, and media — you can also decide if you want to exclude any of them from the Sitemap. To index other content types, update to the plugin’s premium version.

Yoast SEO can handle a multisite system, so you won’t have to install any other plugin for your multisite to make sitemaps. To enable or disable the Sitemap with Yoast SEO, simply go to SEO -> General -> Features. Under Features, you can find the option to enable or disable the Sitemap easily. Yoast SEO is more than a tool to help you build an optimized site. It can be used as a learning platform as the plugin gives you suggestions on fixing problems. Its settings also give you greater control over how your links are displayed. So, let’s discuss the basic features of this plugin in brief.

Features:

• Automated technical SEO improvements, like canonical URLs and meta tags.
• Advanced XML sitemaps, making it easy for Google to understand your site structure.
• The search results include title and meta description templating for better branding and consistent snippets.
• An in-depth Schema.org integration will increase your chance of getting rich results by helping search engines to understand your content.
• Full control over site breadcrumbs so that users and search engines always know where they are.
• Yoast SEO will analyze the structure of your paragraphs to help deliver better content. This includes making sure the paragraphs are not too long, have shorter sentences, and present transition words. This helps the average visitor understand your content. You don’t want to lose them when expressing your point in long jargon. Consumers who understand your material are more likely to make purchases or turn into adamant fans.
• You don’t want your keyword density to be too high. This can result in the post being ranked poorly by Google and other search engines. This is because search engines are looking at content that isn’t saturated with keywords in order to provide quality.
• The Yoast plugin shows how often keywords are used and if you’re filling the post with too many or too few. Think of it like the “Goldilocks Zone” for keyword use.
• Studies have shown content that reads easier has higher retention rates and more frequent visits. Yoast SEO plugin for WordPress will analyze your sentence structure and make sure you’re creating easy-to-read posts. As a result, people will have an easier time absorbing the material. It’s all about keeping the audience engaged, and this tool helps you deliver that content.
• Although Google doesn’t emphasize metadata as it once did, descriptions still play an important role. It’s the little snippet of text that shows up under your search-engine link that attracts visitors.
• Yoast SEO gives you a place to create your own meta description while showing if it’s optimized. The plugin will display a green line using a color bar if the content is perfect.
• The Yoast SEO plugin for WordPress also has the built-in ability to share certain information with social media. While the posts can still be shared without these changes, you can add different imagery or create specific descriptions for Facebook and Twitter. This gives your posts a bit more customization, which could prove beneficial when engaging your audience.

Pricing Details:

Yoast SEO is a very effective Sitemap plugin for WordPress. The plugin is free to use, but it also provides a premium version. It is available in the WordPress plugin directory for free. The free version has all the essential features to create an effective Sitemap plugin system.

7. All in One SEO Pack

The All in One SEO Pack optimizes WordPress websites for SEO. It’s easy to use, works out of the box for beginners, and has advanced features for developers. The plugin ships a free and a premium version. Among the plugin’s numerous features are two sitemap settings. The first is a regular XML sitemap for your site’s pages. The second is an XML sitemap for your images to submit to Google and Bing.

All in One SEO Pack is amongst the popular and powerful SEO plugins for WordPress. This WordPress sitemap plugin is available for free in the WordPress repository, but a premium version of the plugin is also available. It is loaded with many features and functionalities and XML sitemap support.

Once installed, the plugin will create an XML sitemap for your website and submit it to Google and Bing to improve your SEO score. The plugin can also submit image XML sitemaps to search engines which can help improve your image SEO score – this is something that photo-bloggers will love. Sitemaps are included in the free version and give you the ability to enable indexes, enter the number of links per Sitemap, choose the post types and taxonomies, disable by date, disable by author, enter specific URLs, and set up advanced settings. You can automatically generate a custom sitemap and submit it to popular search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, and others with All in One SEO. These search engines will be automatically notified whenever you publish, update, or delete content.

The sitemap module in All in One SEO is also completely customizable, with no coding required. It lets you include or exclude the post types and taxonomies per your needs, and you can prioritize your top-converting pages to make sure they get crawled and indexed.

You can also create different sitemaps like video or news sitemaps. With this feature, you can get your content to appear in video search results and Google News search results. So, let’s discuss the basic features of this plugin in brief.

Features:

• SEO user roles allow you to manage access to important SEO features without handing over control of your website.
• All in One SEO Pro offers complete support for schema markup so you can get more clicks and traffic with rich snippets.
• Easily control how your content and thumbnails look on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media networks.
• Advanced eCommerce SEO support for WooCommerce to optimize product pages, product categories, and more.
• Take full control over the instructions you give web crawlers about what folders and files to crawl on your WordPress site.
• Easily add title tags, meta descriptions, keywords, and everything else you need for proper on-page SEO optimization.
• Take control of your RSS feed to add credits, custom text, links, or even advertisements to help monetize your blog.
• Get higher rankings and unlock more traffic by submitting your latest news articles to Google News.
• All in One SEO gives you all the tools you need to improve your local SEO and rank higher on Google Maps.
• Automatically generate a WordPress XML sitemap and notify all search engines of updates.
• All in One SEO includes a video sitemap generator, so you can rank in Google’s video carousel widget and grow your traffic.
• Analyze your entire WordPress site to detect critical errors and get actionable insights to boost your SEO and get more traffic.
• The amazing AIO SEO support team will help you through every step of your SEO journey. They’re committed to helping you succeed. No question is too big or too small for them.
• AIO SEO is packed with features to help you skyrocket your site to the top of search engines. You can keep things simple with the default settings, or you can tweak things as much as you want if you’re a power user.
• AIO SEO comes with many video tutorials that walk you through many different aspects of SEO. If you have a question, it’s easy to find an instant answer. Of course, the support team is also on hand to help you too.
• Whenever you update content or add something new to your site, AIO SEO will instantly notify search engines like Google and Bing.
• It’s crucial to have an XML sitemap for your website that search engines can easily find all your content. AIO SEO will create one for you instantly when you install it. You can easily customize this to your needs, too.

Pricing Details:

All in One SEO Pack is a very effective Sitemap plugin for WordPress. The plugin is free to use, but it also provides a premium version. It is available in the WordPress plugin directory for free. The free version has all the essential features to create an effective Sitemap plugin system. It offers a premium plan of $49.50 per year for Pro (adds news, video, and RSS sitemaps).

Conclusion:

Sitemap plugins mentioned above are feature-rich and powerful plugins for WordPress sites. You can easily install and activate it from the WordPress plugin directory for free. The plugins here provide essential features and advanced options to create an effective Sitemap plugins system within the WordPress dashboard. All the plugins have free as well as premium versions. The premium version includes various Pro features with affordable pricing. Choosing the right WordPress sitemap plugin is important in improving your website’s SEO.

The best option for your website will depend on the other SEO tools you need. Be sure to check if the features you need are available in the free version or if the premium version is required. I hope you found this article helpful. Which plugins have you found to suit your needs and have planned to use? Do leave us a comment about this. Also, if you happen to use already any of the plugins we have mentioned, share your experience with us. We would love to hear your feedback. We hope this article will help you choose the appropriate Sitemap plugins for your Woocommerce site or online store.