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Simple Sitemap Plugin

We are pleased to announce a new plugin in development which should be ready for testing next sometime next week, with a release into the WordPress.org repository soon after. This plugin adds a global sitemap to your WordPress website so that users can easily see all of your content (posts/pages) on a single page. Simply add a Shortcode to a new page (or post), click publish and you have an instant sitemap!

The advantage of having a HTML sitemap is that links to all your content is visible from one place. This gives your site visitors a quick overview of your site and how it is structured. It is also good for SEO purposes. There will be plenty of plugin options to alter the way the sitemap is generated, including:

  • Show posts, or pages (or both)
  • Show posts first, or pages (if both displayed)
  • Exclude individual posts/pages
  • Sort content by date added (ascending, or descending)
  • Sort content alphabetically (by titles)
  • Add custom sitemap links (to non WordPress areas)

If you have any ideas or suggestions regarding the plugin then please don’t hesitate to let us know. We would be most interested how this could be of use to you on your own website.

10 Responses to Simple Sitemap Plugin

  1. Lorelle says:

    Did this go anywhere? I’ve been reporting on the frustration of Site Maps in WordPress (sitemap is XML hidden version for Google, etc. and the space is the visible HTML version – want to be in charge of naming things! Sheesh!) and this looks very promising. What’s the status? Demos? Examples? Thanks.

  2. dgwyer says:

    Hi Lorelle, thanks for the comment. I remember visiting your site many times a couple of years ago when I was first introduced to WordPress! Learnt so much reading your posts. :)

    As for the Simple Sitemap plugin, yes I do plan to complete this plugin as specified above. Unfortunately I have been very busy updating other plugins (WP Content Filter, and Contemplate) and also finalising a beta version of an online WordPress application (developed in Silverlight) for users to explore all WordPress hooks in real time. You will be able to see all hooks (both action and filter) and then enter a phrase and the list will be automatically filtered. i.e. type in ‘admin’ in the filter text box and you will see a list of all hook names containing ‘admin’. You will also be able to see the source code file where the hook is defined in the Wordress core code. The beta for this will be on the site within the next couple of weeks (before the end of June 2010).

    Anyway, I digress. As for the Simple Sitemap plugin I did originally have the idea as there seemed to be nothing comparable in the WordPress repository (surprisingly, considering the maturity of WordPress). I started coding the plugin and then put up the post about it above but then it got pushed down my schedule.

    If this is something that other WordPress users serious need then I will bump it back up the list. Is this plugin something that a lot of WordPress users want to see (I thought it was just me!). After the Silverlight WordPress application beta has gone live on the site then I can devote more development time to it. It would not take a huge effort to get something pretty basic working, then iterate the plugin functionality and options as subsequent versions are released. I will update the post above to reflect this.

    Can I just ask you what you mean when you said you want to be in charge of naming things. Initially I was intending to just show a list of (links to) posts/pages as they are defined in the WordPress db. What aspects of naming did you want to be in control of?

    David

  3. Lorelle says:

    Sorry for the delay. Checking your goodies out! The demo link isn’t working.

    A sitemap (all one word) is an XML sitemap used by search engines and hidden from the world, though some try to make it visible. A site map (two words) is the visible directory of your content. Your table of contents. Why Google chose a word that was already in use for something similar, but differentiated by a space or non-space…I want to be in charge of naming things because it just adds to the confusion over what these things are called and how and when to use them.

    What it looks like you have done is build a site map with the space. There have been a lot of attempts so I was curious if this was going to be another attempt to sort by the standard filters, or really push the limit to sort by tags, categories and possibly taxonomies. From the description, it looks like it sticks to chronology, alphabetical, and such, though I do see you have it by author. That’s nice. But what about the others which are critical to the structural organization of a site?

    I’d love to know and if you need help, just contact me. the WordPress Community is desperate for a table of contents style archive and site map. Thanks!

  4. KRONiS says:

    I would love an HTML sitemap plugin that created a clean HTML sitemap that has options to create links to all categories only (instead of every blog post) if desired, or selected posts.

    the idea would be for it to be placed in the sitewide footer as sitemap

    keep it separate from the google xml sitemaps or news sitemaps plugins. they are a different animal anyway.

    I would suggest also having the ability to make a custom 404 page that looks similar and is set to not be indexed to avoid duplicate content with the HTML sitemap.
    (use a meta noindex noarchive type of tag)

    let me know if you build it! – @KRONiS

  5. dgwyer says:

    The next release of the Simple Sitemap Plugin will include the feature to display posts grouped into their respective categories (category headings will be links to that category archive too).

    I expect to have finished testing the next beta version and upload it to the WordPress Plugin repository by mid September, probably sooner.

  6. Kee Haskins says:

    I’m surprised that of all the plugins that create sitemaps. I couldn’t find one plugin that would create the HTML and XML sitemap at the sametime. I think it would be nice to have one plugin that took care of all your sitemap needs. I’m concerned that the two plugins I have running might conflict with each other. Then of course there’s the issue of computing overhead.

    If you wanted to get the jump on everyone else, create one plugin that included the best features of the others. Sort of a Super sitemap plugin. You could always include a checkbox in the Admin for people that didn’t want all three. But I would do all three by default to help people with their SEO even if they didn’t know they needed it.

  7. ben says:

    using your plugin and loving it, why does it limit the options (IE sort by author or date ) to 10 only ?
    can this be changed ?
    Thanks!
    Ben.

  8. I’ve just installed this great plugin and my customer loves it, too, but it only works in Firefox, is that correct?

    Safari, IE, and Chrome allow you to change the sort order but nothing happens. Is there a fix for this that I can apply?

    We really want to stay with this plugin but the Firefox limitation seems problematic.

    Thanks for any response you can provide!