Setting up XML sitemap on Google XML Sitemaps

1. Install and activate the plugin

2. Access robots.txt

Virtual robots.txt is generated. Let’s access it.
For example, if the running WordPress URL is
https://www.getshifter.io , add /robots.txt to tail of that URL and access it.

Sample robots.txt:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /
Sitemap: /sitemap_index.xml

3. Check the sitemap.xml

Sitemap’s URL on app will be like this: /sitemap.xml .

XML Sitemap Index generated by Google XML Sitemaps plugin:

4. Disable notification settings

To avoid sending temporary URL to search engines, uncheck the following two checkboxes under [Basic Option]:

• Notify Google about updates of your site
• Notify Bing (formerly MSN Live Search) about updates of your site

5. Generate and deploy artifact

After checking sitemap file, let’s make it public.
Click [Generate Artifact] button

6. Check robots.txt file again.

Access your Shifter site adding /robots.txt to the tail of the URL.

User-agent: *
Disallow: /
Sitemap: http://modest-wescoff7228.static.getshifter.net/sitemap_index.xml

7. Access deployed site and its generated sitemap.xml

The sitemap’s URL on deployed site will be like this:
https://www.example.com/sitemap.xml or
https://foobar.on.getshifter.io/sitemap.xml

XML Sitemap Index generated by Google XML Sitemaps plugin on deployed site:

That’s all!

The search engine’s crawler will access XML Sitemap file through robots.txt.