Would you like to learn how to create an XML sitemap in WordPress without using a plugin?
Creating a sitemap is essential for improving your website’s SEO and ensuring search engines can efficiently index your content. While there are numerous plugins available for generating sitemaps in WordPress, you might prefer to create one manually for more control or to reduce the number of plugins on your site. This guide will walk you through the steps to create a sitemap in WordPress without using a plugin.
What is a Sitemap?
A sitemap is an XML file that lists the URLs of your website. It helps search engines understand your site’s structure and find all your pages. This is crucial for SEO as it ensures all your content gets indexed, which can improve your site’s visibility in search engine results.
Follow these steps to create a sitemap in WordPress without any plugin:
Create a copy of your page.php template and save it as sitemap.php ( this is so it matches your theme & has the correct layout elements, sidebar etc) then at the top paste in:
<?php
/*
Template Name: Sitemap
*/
?>Next, we need some javascript which handles the toggles:
<script type="text/javascript">
$(document).ready(function () {
$('#toggle-view li').click(function () {
var text = $(this).children('div.panel');
if (text.is(':hidden')) {
text.slideDown('200');
$(this).children('span').html('-');
} else {
text.slideUp('200');
$(this).children('span').html('+');
}
});
});
</script>
And this is the code to display your posts and pages on the sitemap:
<ul id="toggle-view">
<li>
<h2>Posts</h2>
<span>+</span>
<div class="panel">
<ul>
<?php
$myposts = get_posts('numberposts=-1&offset='.$debut);
foreach($myposts as $post) :
?>
<li class="sitemap"><?php the_time('d/m/y') ?>: <a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></li>
<?php endforeach; ?>
</ul>
</div>
<?php //endwhile; ?>
</li>
<li>
<h2>Pages</h2>
<span>+</span>
<div class="panel">
<ul>
<?php
$myposts = get_posts('numberposts=-1&post_type=page&offset='.$debut);
foreach($myposts as $post) :
?>
<li class="sitemap"><?php the_time('d/m/y') ?>: <a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></li>
<?php endforeach; ?>
</ul>
</div>
</li>
</ul>
If you need to add in custom post types, you can add as many as you like individually with the following code, change POSTTYPENAME in two places to the name of required post type:
<li>
<h2>POSTTYPENAME</h2>
<span>+</span>
<div class="panel">
<ul>
<?php
$myposts = get_posts('numberposts=-1&post_type=POSTTYPENAME&offset='.$debut);
foreach($myposts as $post) :
?>
<li class="sitemap"><?php the_time('d/m/y') ?>: <a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></li>
<?php endforeach; ?>
</ul>
</div>
</li>
Finally add this to your style.css to add some styling for the toggling:
#toggle-view {
list-style:none;
font-family:arial;
margin:0;
padding:0;
}
#toggle-view h2 {
border-bottom:0px;
margin-top:15px;
margin-top:30px;
}
#toggle-view h2:hover {
color:#ff0000
}
#toggle-view li {
margin:0px;
border-bottom:1px solid #ccc;
position:relative;
cursor:pointer;
list-style-type:none;
padding-left:15px;
}
#toggle-view span {
position:absolute;
left:0px;
top:0;
color:#bdbdbd;
font-size:28px;
font-weight:bold;
}
#toggle-view span:hover {
color:#ff0000;
}
#toggle-view .panel {
margin:5px 0;
display:none;
}
The last thing to do is publish the page which will house your Sitemap, visit “Pages” > “Add New”, after naming the page and adding any content to the page body choose “Sitemap” from the template drop-down on the right under “Page Attributes”
