Guide for XML Google Sitemap for Magento 2

Automatically generate XML Sitemaps in an efficient way. Let your web store communicate with the search engines quickly and properly.

• Index your content way faster
• Include or exclude groups of links in the sitemap
• Individually set frequency and priority for each group of links
• Add images with titles and templates

Sitemaps are critical to search engine optimization. Basically, search engines may judge your web store by your sitemaps. Generate them with the XML Sitemap extension to meet all the necessary requirements and introduce your web store to Google in an appropriate way.

Please go to Admin panel → Content → SEO Toolkit → XML Google Sitemaps

Use a grid to manage work with the sitemaps. To generate, duplicate and edit sitemaps use a drop-down in the Action column.

To create a new sitemap, click Add Sitemap red button.

You can use Filters to apply a more detailed search within the grid. To specify which columns should be displayed on the grid, use Columns tab. You can also configure and select various grid's display modes in the View tab.

When you add a new sitemap or start editing an already existing one, there is a set of specific configuration.

In the General Settings, you can specify values to meet all the Google requirements.

Input a name to your sitemap in the Name field.

In the Stores field, choose which store a sitemap should apply for.

Specify Path to sitemap file.

In Exclude URLs field, specify URLs that should be excluded from your XML Google sitemap.

In the Products tab, you can configure settings for the product links.

Decide whether to Include products links in the sitemap or not.

To improve SEO and bring more traffic to your web store enable Add Images option. For more details see Include Images in XML Google Sitemap

Specify Priority of importance. You can range the value from 0.01-0.99. It is recommended to set higher values (e.g. 0.08 - 1.00) for homepages, product info, main features, etc.

Specify Frequency of updates. Range from never-yearly-monthly-weekly-daily-hourly-always, judging on how often the product pages you add to the sitemap are being updated. It is recommended to set at least weekly for the product pages.

In the Include Last Modified field, choose Yes to include the date when the page was last modified.

In the Category tab, you can configure settings for the category pages links.

Decide whether to Include categories links in the sitemap or not.

To improve SEO and bring more traffic to your web store enable Add Images option. For more details see Include Images in XML Google Sitemap

Specify Priority of importance. You can range the value from 0.01-0.99. It is recommended to set middle values (e.g. 0.04 - 0.07) for category pages etc.

Specify Frequency of updates. Range from never-yearly-monthly-weekly-daily-hourly-always, judging on how often the category pages you add to the sitemap are being updated. It is recommended to set at least monthly or weekly for the category pages.

In the Include Last Modified field, choose Yes to include the date when the page was last modified.

To bring more traffic to your web store, the extension offers an easy way to include any images in your sitemap. Add titles and templates in the sitemap to improve SEO.

In the Pages tab, you can configure settings for any CMS pages links.

Decide whether to Include pages links in the sitemap or not.

Specify Priority of importance. You can range the value from 0.01-0.99. It is recommended to set middle values (e.g. 0.04 - 0.07) for CMS pages.

Specify Frequency of updates. Range from never-yearly-monthly-weekly-daily-hourly-always, judging on how often the CMS pages you add to the sitemap are being updated. It is recommended to set at least monthly or weekly for the CMS pages.

In the Include Last Modified field, choose Yes to include the date when the page was last modified.

For SEO purposes, you may want to remove some links. Use Exclude CMS pages field.

When these modules are installed, XML Sitemaps Configuration will contain corresponding additional tabs as in the example below:

Configure the settings of these pages on the corresponding tabs:

Decide whether to include pages to the sitemap or not.

Specify the Priority of importance. You can range the value from 0.01-0.99.

Specify the Frequency of updates, judging on how often the pages you add to the sitemap are being updated.

Set frequency for cron job. Cron is responsible for indexing and sitemap generation.

Magento 2 XML Google Sitemap extension is preintegrated with Cron Tasks List to provide store owners with an opportunity to track and manage all cron tasks running in the website background.

To view all scheduled and executed cron tasks, go to System → Cron Tasks List

Run all cron tasks and generate their schedule by clicking the ‘Run Cron’ button. Also you can delete separate tasks in bulk, apply filtering and sorting options when it is needed.

Hreflang URLs Scope:

• Website - select to work within one website
• Global - select to work between the websites

Language Code - Specify the language of the audience you want your content introduce to. The option From Current Store Locale is available.

Country Code - Specify the region you want your content introduce to (optional). The options From Current Store Default Country and Don't add are available.

X-default - Specify which store in the XML sitemap will be tagged as a default.

Multi-Stores CMS Pages Relation - The option allows to look for alternative links within various websites with different language and region codes.

• By ID - Relates the pages (from different stores) that have the same ID's;
• Hreflang UUID - Relates the pages (from different stores) that have the same UUID's;
• Hreflang URL Key - Relates the pages (from different stores) that have the same URL Keys;

Please, execute the following command to manually generate the XML sitemap via SSH:

php bin/magento amasty:xmlsitemap:generate

To generate a specific sitemap, please, use the following command and substitute the sitemap_id with the required name:

php bin/magento amasty:xmlsitemap:generate sitemap_id