Sitemap

SleekRank adds every generated page to one sitemap, so search engines can find them: the sitemap of the first supported provider it finds.

Supported sitemap providers

Rank checks for these in order and uses the first that is active:

1. The SEO Framework: the generated URLs are added to its sitemap
2. Yoast SEO: a separate /sleek-rank-sitemap.xml (continued in /sleek-rank-sitemap2.xml and so on for large sets) is listed in Yoast’s sitemap index
3. Rank Math: the same /sleek-rank-sitemap.xml files, listed in Rank Math’s sitemap index
4. All in One SEO: the generated URLs are added to its sitemap as additional pages
5. an integration another plugin registers through the sleekRank/register/sitemapIntegrations action (see Hooks)
6. WordPress core sitemaps: a sleekrank provider at /wp-sitemap-sleekrank-1.xml, listed in /wp-sitemap.xml

Other SEO plugins, such as SEOPress or Slim SEO, are not supported. With one of them, Rank falls back to WordPress core sitemaps, which those plugins may switch off.

Rank checks only whether a plugin is active, not whether its sitemap is turned on. If the first active plugin in the list has its sitemap switched off, Rank does not fall back to another provider, and the generated pages appear in no sitemap.

Sitemap settings

Each page group has its own settings on its Sitemap page:

• Include generated pages in sitemaps: whether the group’s URLs are listed, on by default
• Priority: a value from 0.0 to 1.0, 0.5 by default
• Change frequency: always, hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, yearly or never, weekly by default

What an entry holds

When the sitemap is requested, Rank goes through every published page group with sitemaps enabled and adds one entry for every slug in the group’s cached rows. A group whose data has not been loaded adds nothing, so reload a new group’s data before checking the sitemap. Each entry holds:

• URL: the full generated URL, always with a trailing slash
• Last modified: the base page’s last modification time
• Priority and Change frequency: the group’s settings

The SEO Framework receives only the URL and the last-modified date of each entry.

Yoast SEO, Rank Math and WordPress core split the URLs into files of 2,000 by default, WordPress core’s sitemap limit; the sleekRank/sitemap/urlsPerSitemap filter changes the number.

Base pages

The base page of a published group carries a noindex robots tag. With WordPress core sitemaps and The SEO Framework, Rank also leaves those base pages out of the page sitemap. With another SEO plugin, check its sitemap for your base pages.

Checking your sitemap

After the groups’ data is loaded, open the sitemap of the provider Rank uses: /sleek-rank-sitemap.xml with Yoast SEO or Rank Math, /wp-sitemap-sleekrank-1.xml with WordPress core sitemaps, or the SEO plugin’s own sitemap with The SEO Framework and All in One SEO, and look for URLs that match your page groups’ patterns.

To see the entries without a browser, print them with WP-CLI:

wp sleek rank sitemap --format=table
wp sleek rank sitemap --group=12 --format=xml