TamRank generates your XML sitemap automatically, at /sitemap.xml. There is no screen to build it and nothing to switch on. What you do control is which content types and taxonomies appear in it. This page shows where your sitemap lives, how it is put together, and how to leave things out of it.
In short
- Your sitemap is at yoursite.com/sitemap.xml. It is generated automatically.
- Choose which post types and taxonomies are included under TamRank → Settings → Sitemap.
- Submit
/sitemap.xmlonce in Google Search Console. - To leave a single image out, use the checkbox on that image in the Media Library.
Where your sitemap lives
Your sitemap is at yoursite.com/sitemap.xml. That is the URL to submit and the URL to check.
It is worth being precise about this, because other SEO plugins use a different address. If you moved over from Yoast you may still be thinking of /sitemap_index.xml, and if you have WordPress core’s own sitemap in mind that is /wp-sitemap.xml. Neither is TamRank’s. Ours is /sitemap.xml.
Open it in a browser and you will see a readable table rather than raw XML. TamRank attaches a stylesheet so you can actually check your own sitemap without reading angle brackets.
How it is put together
TamRank does not ship a fixed set of sub-sitemaps. It builds the list from your site, every time:
- one sub-sitemap per enabled post type, so posts become
/sitemap-posts.xml, pages become/sitemap-pages.xml, and a custom post type gets its own slug - one sub-sitemap per enabled taxonomy, but only when that taxonomy has terms with published posts behind them, so empty taxonomies are skipped rather than listed empty
- an image sitemap at
/sitemap-images.xml, always
When that adds up to more than one sub-sitemap, /sitemap.xml becomes an index that links to them. When it adds up to one, /sitemap.xml is simply that one flat sitemap with everything in it. Small sites often see the flat version, and that is correct, not a fault.
Choosing what goes in
Go to TamRank → Settings → Sitemap. There you get a toggle per post type and per taxonomy. Switching one off removes it from the sitemap.
Two things are worth knowing about that screen:
- Custom post types and custom taxonomies sit behind the Advanced settings expander, and that block only appears if your site actually has custom types. On a plain WordPress install you will not see it, and there is nothing wrong.
- Sitemap membership is separate from analysis. Whether a post type appears in your sitemap and whether TamRank scores it in the audit are two independent settings. Turning a post type off for the audit does not remove it from the sitemap, and the other way round.
A note on what is not there: TamRank has no master switch to turn the sitemap off entirely. If you need that, it is not a setting, and the honest answer is that you would have to block the URL another way.
Leaving a single item out
There is one per-item exclusion, and it is for images. Open an image in the Media Library and you will find an Exclude from XML sitemap checkbox on the attachment screen.
There is no equivalent checkbox on an individual post or page. To keep a single page out of search, set it to noindex in the SEO box instead. That is the stronger signal anyway: a sitemap is a suggestion about what to crawl, while noindex is an instruction about what to index.
Submitting it to search engines
You only need to do this once per site.
- Open Google Search Console and select your property.
- Go to Sitemaps.
- Enter
sitemap.xmland submit.
Bing picks it up through Bing Webmaster Tools in the same way. After that, TamRank keeps the sitemap current as you publish; you do not resubmit it every time.
Tip: check the Sitemap line in your robots.txt
Your robots.txt carries a Sitemap: line pointing at your sitemap, and TamRank writes that line once, when the plugin is first activated, using whatever your site address was at that moment. It is never rewritten afterwards.
That matters if you built the site on a staging domain and then went live, which is the order most people work in. Your robots.txt can quietly keep advertising the staging URL. Open yoursite.com/robots.txt after a domain change and check that the Sitemap line points at your real domain. If it does not, fix it in the robots.txt editor. It takes ten seconds and it is easy to never notice.
Troubleshooting
The sitemap returns a 404. Go to Settings → Permalinks in WordPress and click Save. That refreshes the rewrite rules, which is what serves the sitemap. Nothing is lost by doing it.
A post is missing from the sitemap. Check that it is published rather than draft, that it is not set to noindex, and that its post type is enabled under TamRank → Settings → Sitemap.
A whole content type is missing. Its toggle is probably off, and for a custom post type the toggle lives behind Advanced settings on that same screen.
My changes are not showing. A caching plugin or CDN is usually serving an older copy of the file. Clear the cache and purge the CDN, then reload.
Search Console says my old sitemap URL fails. If you migrated from another plugin, the old address stopped existing when that plugin stopped generating it. Remove the old entry in Search Console and submit sitemap.xml.
Frequently asked questions
What is my sitemap URL?
yoursite.com/sitemap.xml. Not /sitemap_index.xml, which belongs to another plugin.
Do I have to generate it?
No. It is generated automatically and stays current as you publish.
Why does my sitemap have no index page?
Because your site produced only one sub-sitemap, so everything sits in the single flat file at /sitemap.xml. That is expected on smaller sites.
Can I exclude one page from the sitemap?
Not with a per-page checkbox. Set the page to noindex in the SEO box, or switch off its whole post type. Individual images do have their own exclude checkbox in the Media Library.
Can I turn the sitemap off completely?
There is no setting for that in TamRank.
Related
- The other crawl file: Editing robots.txt in TamRank
- When two plugins both make one: Fixing plugin conflicts with TamRank
- The bigger picture: The complete WordPress SEO guide
- Back to Documentation
