Rolf Allard van Hagen

The light-weight XML Sitemaps Manager allows you to de/activate WordPress core XML sitemaps, change the maximum number of URLs per sitemap and add Last Modified dates.
<h4>Features</h4>
<ul>
<li>Options to disable the complete sitemap index or exclude certain post type sitemaps, taxonomy sitemaps or the user sitemap.</li>
<li>Change the maximum number of URLs in the sitemaps.</li>
<li>Add Last Modified dates to posts, terms, users and the first sitemap of each type in the index.</li>
<li>Conditional is_sitemap(), <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/51543" rel="nofollow ugc">ticket</a>, and is_sitemap_stylesheet() for good measure.</li>
<li>Polylang compatible.</li>
<li>Multisite compatible: Can be network activated. On uninstallation, all sub-site options will be cleared from the database as long as not is_large_network().</li>
<li>Additional fixes and improvents to the core XML Sitemap.</li>
</ul>
Fixes some core XML Sitemap bugs: 
– Blog page lastmod in WP 6.5 (use last post date instead of last modified date) 
– 404 Response code on certain sitemaps, <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/51912" rel="nofollow ugc">ticket</a>. 
– Don’t set is_home() true, <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/51542" rel="nofollow ugc">ticket</a>. 
– Don’t execute main query, <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/51117" rel="nofollow ugc">ticket</a>. 
– Ignore stickyness in WP 6.0 and below, <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/55633" rel="nofollow ugc">ticket</a> (fixed in WP 6.1).
Improves core XML Sitemap performance by reducing the number of database queries for: 
– the sitemap index by 5; 
– each post type sitemap by 4; 
– each taxonomy sitemap by the number of terms in that sitemap, <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/55239" rel="nofollow ugc">ticket</a> (fixed in WP 6.0); 
– each user sitemap by the number of users in that sitemap.
<h4>Privacy / GDPR</h4>
This plugin does not collect any user or visitor data nor set browser cookies. Using this plugin should not impact your site privacy policy in any way.
There is no data published that was not already public. There is no data actively transmitted to search engines or other third parties.
<h4>Contribute</h4>
If you’re happy with this plugin as it is, please consider writing a quick <a href="https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/xml-sitemaps-manager/reviews/#new-post" rel="ugc">rating</a> or helping other users out on the <a href="https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/xml-sitemaps-manager" rel="ugc">support forum</a>.
If you wish to help improve this plugin, you’re very welcome to <a href="https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/wp-plugins/xml-sitemaps-manager/" rel="nofollow ugc">translate it into your language</a> or contribute code on <a href="https://github.com/RavanH/xml-sitemaps-manager" rel="nofollow ugc">Github</a>.
<h4>Credits</h4>
Credits to all users actively discussing and contributing code to <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/query?status=accepted&status=assigned&status=closed&status=new&status=reopened&status=reviewing&component=Sitemaps&order=priority" rel="nofollow ugc">Sitemap component bugs</a>, explicitly to <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/51912#comment:9" rel="nofollow ugc">@Tkama</a> for suggesting to render the sitemaps at the parse_request action hook.

XML Sitemaps Manager

Options to manage the WordPress core XML Sitemaps, optimize and fix some bugs.

Take control of your WordPress core XML Sitemap and add a Google News Sitemap. Compatible with WordPress Multisite, Polylang and WPML and most caching plugins. There are no static files created.
NEW: Connect your site to your Google Search Console property to keep an eye on sitemap performance and possible errors. Submit your sitemaps right from the WordPress admin.
<h4>Features</h4>
<ul>
<li>Control the WordPress core XML Sitemaps.</li>
<li>Add a Google News Sitemap.</li>
<li>Get sitemap reports from Google Search Console to keep an eye on sitemap performance and possible errors.</li>
<li>Submit sitemaps to Google Search Console to invite Google to revisit them.</li>
<li>Add new robots.txt rules.</li>
</ul>
XML Sitemap
<ul>
<li>Option to disable the main XML Sitemap Index.</li>
<li>Select sitemaps to include in the sitemap index: post types, taxonomies, authors and google news.</li>
<li>Select which (custom) post types, taxonomy archives and users to include in respective sitemaps.</li>
<li>Exclude specific posts, pages and custom post type posts from sitemaps.</li>
<li>Add a custom sitemap with external URLs.</li>
<li>Add external sitemaps.</li>
<li>Choose the sitemap server/generator: WordPress core or Plugin.</li>
<li>Plugin server: Include featured images or attached images with title.</li>
<li>Choose to update Last modification date only on post modification (default) or also on comments.</li>
<li>Set Priority per post type, per taxonomy and per individual post.</li>
<li>Sitemap stylesheet templates can be overridden by theme template files.</li>
</ul>
Google News Sitemap
<ul>
<li>Optionally activate the Google News Sitemap.</li>
<li>Includes the required news sitemap tags: Publication name, language, title and publication date.</li>
<li>Set a News Publication Name (site name by default).</li>
<li>Supports custom post types.</li>
<li>Limit inclusion of certain post categories.</li>
<li>Google News Sitemap stylesheet template can be overridden by theme template files.</li>
</ul>
<h4>Pro Extensions</h4>
<a href="https://premium.status301.com/downloads/xml-sitemap-advanced/" rel="nofollow ugc">XML Sitemap Advanced</a>
<ul>
<li>Sitemap notifier: Automatic XML Sitemap Index update notification to Google Search Console. (Yes, Google Sitemap Ping is back!)</li>
<li>Sitemap notifier log</li>
<li>Set a custom sitemap URL (slug)</li>
<li>Exclude posts and pages in the Bulk Editor.</li>
<li>Optionally include empty taxonomy term and empty author archives</li>
<li>Yoast SEO and Rank Math compatibility: exclude posts set to noindex</li>
</ul>
<a href="https://premium.status301.com/downloads/google-news-advanced/" rel="nofollow ugc">Google News Advanced</a>
<ul>
<li>Sitemap norifier: Automatic Google News Sitemap update notification to Google Search Console. (Yes, Google Sitemap Ping is back!)</li>
<li>Sitemap notifier log</li>
<li>Multiple post types – Include more than one post type in the same News Sitemap.</li>
<li>Keywords – Add the keywords tag to your News Sitemap. Keywords can be created from Tags, Categories or a dedicated Keywords taxonomy.</li>
<li>Stock tickers – Add stock tickers tag to your News Sitemap. A dedicated Stock Tickers taxonomy will be available to manage them.</li>
</ul>
<h4>Privacy / GDPR</h4>
This plugin does not collect any user or visitor data nor set browser cookies. Using this plugin should not impact your site privacy policy in any way.
Data that is published
An XML Sitemap index, referencing other sitemaps containing your web site’s public post URLs of selected post types that are already public, along with their last modification date and associated image URLs, and any selected public archive URLs. 
An author sitemap can be included, which will contain links to author archive pages. These urls contain author/user slugs, and the author archives can contain author bio information. If you wish to keep this out of public domain, then deactivate the author sitemap and use an SEO plugin to add noindex headers to the respective archive pages.
A Google News Sitemap containing your web site’s public and recent (last 48 hours) URLs of selected news post type, along with their publication time stamp and associated image URL.
Data that is transmitted
when a connection between your site and Google Search Console is configured in this plugin, the sitemap index and google news sitemap can be submitted to Google. No data is transmitted to any third party.
<h4>Contribute</h4>
If you’re happy with this plugin as it is, please consider writing a quick <a href="https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/xml-sitemap-feed/reviews/#new-post" rel="ugc">rating</a> or helping other users out on the <a href="https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/xml-sitemap-feed" rel="ugc">support forum</a>.
If you wish to help build this plugin, you’re very welcome to <a href="https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/wp-plugins/xml-sitemap-feed/" rel="nofollow ugc">translate it into your language</a> or contribute code on <a href="https://github.com/RavanH/xml-sitemap-feed/" rel="nofollow ugc">Github</a>.
<h4>Credits</h4>
XML Sitemap Feed was originally based on the discontinued plugin Standard XML Sitemap Generator by Patrick Chia. Since then, it has been completely rewritten and extended in many ways.
NOTES:
<ol>
<li>
If you do not use fancy URL’s or you have WordPress site running in a subdirectory, a dynamic robots.txt will NOT be generated.
</li>
<li>
On large sites, it is advised to use a good caching plugin to improve your site and sitemap performance.
</li>
</ol>

XML Sitemap & Google News


I've been trying several plugins to generate a proper sitemap on our site. This one has a simple yet effective setup and really works like a charm with my CPT's.


Really works with custom post types

Take control of your WordPress core XML Sitemap and add a Google News Sitemap.

XML Sitemaps Manager vs XML Sitemap & Google News