How to Use Gsitemap to Improve Your SEO

Step-by-Step Gsitemap Setup for WordPress SitesGsitemap is a tool/plugin designed to generate and manage sitemaps optimized for search engines. A correctly configured sitemap helps search engines discover and index your pages faster, improving site visibility and SEO. This guide walks you through a complete, practical setup of Gsitemap for WordPress sites, from installation to advanced configuration and verification with search engines.

What you’ll need

A WordPress site with admin access
FTP or hosting control panel access (recommended for troubleshooting)
An installed and activated Gsitemap plugin (or access to upload it)
Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools accounts (for verification)

1. Install and activate Gsitemap

Log into your WordPress admin dashboard.
Go to Plugins → Add New.
Search for “Gsitemap” in the plugin directory. If available, click Install Now → Activate.
If you have a premium or third-party Gsitemap ZIP file, upload it via Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin, choose the ZIP, then Install Now → Activate.

Tip: Keep a backup or enable maintenance mode before installing new plugins on live sites.

2. Initial plugin configuration

After activation, find Gsitemap under Settings or its own admin menu.
Open the plugin settings. The typical first steps include:
- Setting your site’s base URL (usually detected automatically).
- Choosing sitemap filename (default often is sitemap.xml).
- Enabling compression (gzip) if offered — reduces bandwidth when crawlers fetch the sitemap.

Choose sensible defaults at first; you’ll refine them later.

3. Select content types to include

Sitemaps can contain different content types—posts, pages, custom post types, images, categories, tags, and more.

Include: core content types you want indexed (Posts, Pages).
Optionally include: custom post types (products, portfolio items) if they are public and valuable.
Exclude: admin pages, draft/private content, paginated archives, or thin/duplicate content.

In Gsitemap settings, enable or disable checkboxes next to each content type. For e-commerce sites, include product and product-category sitemaps.

4. Configure priority, change frequency, and lastmod

These XML tags are suggestions for crawlers:

priority: value between 0.0 and 1.0 (home page usually highest).
changefreq: how often content changes (hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, never).
lastmod: timestamp of last modification (usually handled automatically).

Best practice:

Homepage: priority 1.0, changefreq daily or weekly.
Important evergreen pages: priority 0.8–0.9, changefreq weekly/monthly.
Regular posts: priority 0.5–0.7, changefreq monthly.
Low-value pages: priority 0.1–0.3, changefreq never/monthly.

Set defaults in Gsitemap, and override per-item when required.

5. Images, video, and multilingual pages

If your site uses rich media or multiple languages, enable the relevant sitemap extensions:

Image sitemaps: include images attached to posts/pages; improves image search indexing.
Video sitemaps: provide video metadata (title, description, duration) if hosting videos.
Hreflang/multilingual: include alternate-language URLs for multilingual sites to help correct regional indexing.

Gsitemap should provide toggles and fields to add image/video metadata and hreflang entries.

6. Handling paginated content, archives, and taxonomies

Decide whether to include paginated pages (page/2, page/3) and taxonomy archives:

Exclude paginated archives usually; include only canonical pages to avoid duplicate indexing.
Include category/tag pages only if they have unique, useful content.
For large sites, consider splitting sitemaps into multiple files (index sitemap referencing sub-sitemaps).

Use Gsitemap’s filters or settings to exclude patterns (e.g., /page/) and to toggle taxonomies.

7. Advanced filters and custom URLs

Gsitemap often includes advanced controls:

Exclude specific URLs by path, ID, or regex.
Include custom URLs not part of WordPress (landing pages, external microsites) by adding them manually.
Programmatic hooks/filters for developers to alter sitemap output.

Add manual entries for non-WP pages if needed; test their URLs after adding.

8. Sitemap indexing and splitting

Large sites (>50,000 URLs or >50MB uncompressed) must split sitemaps:

Gsitemap should auto-split into multiple sitemap files and produce a sitemap index (sitemap_index.xml).
Ensure each sub-sitemap adheres to size and URL limits.

Confirm in plugin settings that splitting is enabled and view generated sitemap index.

9. Test your sitemap

Open the sitemap URL in a browser (e.g., https://example.com/sitemap.xml).
Check for valid XML formatting and that URLs are correct (no 404s).
Validate with online XML sitemap validators or use the browser’s view-source.

Look for duplicate entries, incorrect lastmod dates, or unwanted private URLs.

10. Submit to Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools

In Google Search Console, go to Sitemaps → Add a new sitemap → enter the sitemap path (e.g., sitemap.xml) → Submit.
In Bing Webmaster Tools, go to Configure My Site → Sitemaps → Submit a sitemap.
Monitor indexing status and fix reported issues.

Resubmit after major sitemap changes or large content updates.

11. Set up automatic regeneration and cache settings

Enable automatic sitemap updates on content changes (post publish/update).
If Gsitemap caches sitemaps, set a short but reasonable cache TTL (e.g., 5–30 minutes) to balance performance and freshness.
Clear sitemap cache after bulk edits or migrations.

12. Troubleshooting common issues

404 on sitemap URL: check plugin activation, permalink settings, and server rewrite rules.
Private/draft pages appearing: verify visibility settings and exclude rules.
Sitemap not updated: confirm auto-regeneration is enabled and check cache.
Search Console errors: follow specific error messages (e.g., blocked by robots.txt, 5xx server errors).

If server returns 5xx, check resource limits or contact hosting provider.

13. Security and performance considerations

Protect sitemap files from unintended editing; they should be publicly readable but not writable by attackers.
Use gzip compression to reduce bandwidth.
Limit crawler load by using robots.txt crawl-delay only if necessary; better to rely on crawlers’ politeness.

14. Maintaining sitemaps long-term

Re-submit sitemaps after site migrations, structural changes, or major redesigns.
Periodically review included URLs and remove archived/redirected pages.
Keep Gsitemap (and WordPress) updated for compatibility and security.

Example checklist (quick)

Install & activate Gsitemap
Configure base URL & filename
Select content types to include/exclude
Set priority/changefreq/lastmod defaults
Enable image/video/hreflang if needed
Exclude paginated/low-value pages
Test sitemap XML and fix errors
Submit to Google & Bing
Enable auto-regeneration and caching
Monitor and re-submit after major changes

Gsitemap, when configured correctly, ensures search engines can efficiently discover your site’s content. Follow these steps to set up a reliable sitemap for WordPress that supports indexing, reduces duplicate content issues, and improves SEO discoverability.