Search and indexing

Set up sitemaps, the Google News sitemap and IndexNow

Check your XML sitemap, switch the news and video sitemaps on, test them, submit them in Search Console, and ping Bing and others with IndexNow.

A sitemap is a list of your pages for search engines. OnlyAI SEO builds it for you, keeps it fresh and leaves out anything search engines should not see.

Check the sitemap

1. Open OnlyAI SEO, Indexation and find the Sitemap section.
2. Make sure Serve an XML sitemap is on. The address is /sitemap_index.xml on your site (it also replaces WordPress's own wp-sitemap.xml, which redirects there).
3. Press Test sitemap.

It lists every public post type and taxonomy (1,000 addresses per file) with last-modified dates and images. Pages marked noindex, password-protected pages and drafts are left out, and the address is added to your robots.txt. If Yoast, Rank Math or another SEO plugin already builds your sitemap, OnlyAI SEO does not build a second one.

The Google News sitemap

Tick News sitemap (posts from the last 48 hours, for Google News). It lives at /news-sitemap.xml and lists posts published in the last 48 hours, newest first, up to 1,000, the way Google News expects: address, publication name, language, publication date in UTC and title.

• A post you publish appears straight away; one you trash disappears straight away.
• Drafts, scheduled posts, password-protected posts, pages and anything noindex are never listed.
• Submit `/news-sitemap.xml` in Google Search Console, and make sure your publication is approved in Google Publisher Center. The sitemap alone does not put a site into Google News.

The video sitemap

Tick Video sitemap to list YouTube, Vimeo and self-hosted videos found in your posts.

Submit the sitemap to Google

1. Open Google Search Console, Sitemaps.
2. Enter sitemap_index.xml and press Submit.
3. Do the same for news-sitemap.xml if you use it.

Ping Bing and others: IndexNow

IndexNow tells Bing, Yandex and other engines the moment you publish or update. It is on by default. To send everything once, press Submit all to IndexNow on the Indexation page.

Find what keeps posts out of search

• Run audit (50 latest) checks your newest posts for blockers: password protection, noindex, a robots.txt rule that blocks the address, a canonical pointing elsewhere.
• Check Google status (25 posts) shows Google's own index status per post. It needs Google connected and a Search Console property chosen.