=== Companion Sitemap Generator - Simple, Smart, and SEO-Ready === Contributors: papin, boudewijnkok Tags: sitemap, xml, robots, seo, multilingual Requires at least: 6.0 Tested up to: 6.9 Requires PHP: 7.0 Stable tag: 4.6.1 Donate link: https://www.paypal.me/wijzijnqreative/ License: GPLv2 or later License URI: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html Create clean, complete, and up-to-date sitemaps for your WordPress website automatically. == Description == Create clean, complete, and up-to-date sitemaps for your WordPress website — automatically. Companion Sitemap Generator helps search engines and visitors explore your site with ease by generating both XML and HTML sitemaps, no coding required. Whether you run a blog, portfolio, or e-commerce store, this plugin ensures that every important page stays visible and discoverable. = Features = * Automatic XML Sitemap: Always up-to-date and optimized for search engines including Google & Bing. * User-Friendly HTML Sitemap: Create a public sitemap page to help visitors explore your site. * Content Control: Include or exclude specific posts, pages, categories, taxonomies, or custom post types. * Multilingual Support: Full compatibility with Polylang and other translation plugins. * Built-in Robots.txt Manager: Edit crawling rules right inside WordPress — no FTP required. * Lightweight & Fast: Minimal performance impact and no unnecessary scripts or bloat. = Why Use Companion Sitemap Generator? = * Works immediately, zero configuration needed. * No tracking or external services. * Perfect for site owners, agencies, and developers. * Active maintenance and full compatibility with the latest WordPress releases. == Installation == = Manual install = 1. Upload the plugin files to /wp-content/plugins/companion-sitemap-generator, or install the plugin directly through the WordPress Plugins screen. 1. Activate the plugin through Plugins → Installed Plugins. 1. Go to Tools → Sitemap to customize your sitemap. 1. (Optional) Create a page for your HTML sitemap and insert the provided block. == Screenshots == 1. Sitemap dashboard 2. Exclude posts from sitemap 3. Quickly update via dashboard 4. Edit robots file 5. HTML Sitemap == Frequently Asked Questions == = What is a sitemap? = A sitemap is a file where you provide information about the pages and posts your site, and the relationships between them. Search engines read this file to more intelligently crawl your site. A sitemap tells the search engine which pages you think are important in your site, and also provides valuable information about these pages: for example, when the page was last updated, how often the page is changed, and any alternate language versions of a page. = Where can I find my XML sitemap? = You can typically access it at: https://yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml = How do I create an HTML sitemap page? = Create a new WordPress page and insert the gutenberg block from the editor. = Can I exclude certain content types? = Yes. You can exclude posts, pages, taxonomies, and custom post types via the settings. = Does the plugin support multilingual sites? = Yes — the plugin fully supports Polylang and can add language-specific tags to the sitemaps. = Does this plugin collect any data? = No. Companion Sitemap Generator does not track, send, or store any personal data. == Changelog == = 4.6.2 = * 📅 Release date: April 23, 2026 * ✨ Improved: Better contrast on certain elements * 🐞 Fixed: The hidden object counters on the content filters = 4.6.1 = * 📅 Release date: April 16, 2026 * ✨ Improved: Better responsiveness for the HTML sitemap * 🐞 Fixed: A couple of errors that broke the HTML sitemap = 4.6.0 = * 📅 Release date: March 20, 2026 * ✨ Improved: Redesigned dashboard pages to match new WordPress styling * ✨ Improved: Reworked the content filter making it easier and clearer to use * ✨ Improved: Changed wording on a few settings to make it clearer what it does * ✨ Improved: Added more and clearer error messages that actually explain the problem * ♿️ Accessibility: Began adding accessibility markup like screen reader texts (will be expanded upon in future updates) * 🔒 Security: Added proper escaping to all translatable text * 🔒 Security: Added additional user-right checks to all pages * 🔒 Security: Updated some of the older functions to be more secure, making this plugin now require PHP 7.0 or higher * 💡 New: Added a help tab for more information about all features (more and better info will be added in a future update) * 💡 New: Added more intervals to the auto update and set default to daily (instead of hourly) * 🐞 Removed: Support URLs that returned a 404 error * 🐞 Removed: Show XML in HTML setting * 🐞 Removed: Dashboard widget = 4.5.9.3 (June 12, 2024) = * Fixed Additional pages being blank = 4.5.9.2 (March 20, 2024) = * Fixed another small issue with Additional pages = 4.5.9.1 (March 8, 2024) = * Database version update to fix Yandex on update = 4.5.9 (February 29, 2024) = * New: Added option to auto-ping to Yandex = 4.5.8 (February 29, 2024) = * Fixed: Issue where it would show and empty "Additional pages" heading = 4.5.7 (December 20, 2023) = * Fixed: Taxonomy items not showing up in HTML sitemap * Fixed: Adding the XML sitemap to the HTML sitemap would break the page = 4.5.6 (December 19, 2023) = * Improvement: Better performance on larger sites = 4.5.5 (September 20, 2023) = * Fix: Fixed issue where multilingual would break the sitemap = 4.5.4 (September 19, 2023) = * New: Added "Never" option for the auto update, because why not? * Improvement: Better performance on larger sites = 4.5.3 (June 12, 2023) = * Fix: XSS issues = 4.5.2 (October 28, 2022) = * Fix: Critical error on Post content filter = 4.5.1 (October 27, 2022) = * Fix: "The link followed has expired" error on Post content filter = 4.5.0 (October 13, 2022) = * New: Add images to the sitemap [Read more](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/sitemaps/image-sitemaps) * Fix: Squashed some bugs