One of most awaited feature that WordPress 5.5 release shipped today is the XML sitemap generator. That means you longer need XML sitemap generator plugin to be installed and also you don’t need to think about it anymore.
Delete XML Sitemap Plugin
If you have been using a plugin to generate XML sitemap then it’s time to bid thanks to the plugin creators and deactivate that plugin and delete it.
But before you delete
But before you deactivate and delete you XML sitemap generator plugin there are a few things you need to take into your consideration and that might hurt your rankings.
Because,
WordPress XML Sitemap can’t generate media XML sitemaps like image sitemap and video sitemap.
- Image sitemap
- video sitemap
Don’t Delete Your Sitemap Plugin, if..
If your website, blog and store ranks for videos and images and your existing plugin was generating image and video sitemap then you should not delete your existing XML sitemap generator plugin because WordPress sitemap generator does not generate media sitemap yet.
If your website get more traffic from web searches and almost none from image and video searches then you should deactivate and delete your XML sitemap generator plugin and enable WordPress inbuilt XML sitemap generator.
How to Enable WordPress XML Sitemap
Easy stuff – just deactivate and delete your existing XML Sitemap plugin and refresh your page and visit yoursite.com/wp-sitemap.xml
Let Search Engines Know
Though WordPress claims that this inbuilt feature notifies search engines, still our job is to let search engines like Google, Bing, Ask know that your site has new XML sitemap URL.