Global vs. Individual Sitemap Settings in Yoast SEO

When you manage a WordPress site, Yoast SEO lets you control which URLs appear in its XML sitemap. An XML sitemap is a list of URLs that helps search engines find site content. You can turn the sitemap feature on or off for the whole site, choose whether groups such as posts or pages appear, and exclude an individual post or page.

Yoast generates the sitemap for the whole site, but group settings and each item’s eligibility determine which URLs appear. To find why a URL appears or is missing, compare the relevant Yoast settings with the sitemap index and the sitemap file for that content type.

Which Yoast settings affect which content

The WordPress dashboard path for the site-wide switch is Yoast SEO → Settings → Site features → Technical SEO → XML sitemaps. Yoast’s sitemap settings instructions describe this control as enabling or disabling the XML sitemap feature.

Two other controls determine which groups and individual items Yoast includes:

The group-level setting appears in Yoast SEO Settings, under Content types or Categories & tags. Yoast says that showing a content type in search results includes it in the sitemap; turning that option off removes the type from the sitemap. Its sitemap index instructions describe these content-type and taxonomy controls.

For a single post or page, edit the item and open Yoast SEO → Advanced. Set Allow search engines to show this Post in search results? to No, then update the item. Yoast documents this individual-content exclusion method. This setting controls both search visibility and sitemap eligibility.

What the sitemap index shows

Yoast’s sitemap index is a directory of links to separate sitemap files. It is available at /sitemap_index.xml when the feature is enabled. The index can link to files for posts and pages, as well as authors, categories, and tags. It can also link to files for other eligible content groups. Each child sitemap then lists URLs for that group, as described in Yoast’s sitemap specification.

The index shows how each setting applies. The site-level switch controls whether Yoast provides its sitemap feature. A content-type or taxonomy setting affects a whole group and its corresponding sitemap. An individual noindex setting, which tells search engines not to show one post or page in search results, affects that item within the group.

The index and child sitemaps update as content is added or removed. A missing URL does not show the cause by itself. A group-level setting or an individual noindex instruction can keep it out. Another eligibility rule can also exclude it. Yoast’s specification also lists private or password-protected content and some manual canonical URLs as cases where content is excluded.

How to verify a URL’s scope

Check the settings at each level, then compare them with the generated XML:

1. In Yoast SEO → Settings → Site features, check whether XML sitemaps is enabled under Technical SEO, then use Yoast’s sitemap-view control to open the sitemap.
2. Under Content types or Categories & tags, check the relevant Show [type] in search results? setting.
3. Edit the post or page, open Yoast SEO → Advanced, and check its search-visibility setting.
4. Open /sitemap_index.xml, follow the relevant child sitemap, and search for the item’s URL.

If the URL is absent, compare the item’s setting with its content type’s setting before treating the sitemap as broken. The public XML shows which URLs Yoast included; the dashboard settings help explain why. Yoast also documents developer filters for excluding individual items or broader groups when the interface does not provide the needed control in its XML sitemap API documentation.

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