Indexing & sitemaps

Indexing Advanced Options

Fine-tune sitemap behavior with dynamic lastmod, canonical enforcement, multilingual hreflang support, cache controls, and built-in sitemap diagnostics.

7 min read All plans Advanced tab

Before you start

The Advanced tab under Indexing & Sitemaps holds power-user settings that affect how XML sitemaps are generated, cached, and validated. Most sites only need the Overview and Submission tabs — use Advanced when you need precise crawl control or are troubleshooting sitemap issues.

Where to find it Open SEO Rank Genius → Indexing & Sitemaps → Advanced. All settings live in a single card with section dividers.

You will need:

WordPress Administrator access
SEO Rank Genius sitemaps enabled (default after Setup Wizard)
For multilingual: WPML or Polylang installed (optional)

Save after changes Click the blue Save button in the Advanced header after toggling any setting. Some actions (Clear Cache, Run Diagnostics) execute immediately.

Open Advanced tab

Navigate to:

SEO Rank Genius → Indexing & Sitemaps → Advanced

The Advanced screen is one unified card divided into five sections: Dynamic Settings, Canonical Settings, Multilingual Support, Cache & Performance, and Sitemap Diagnostics.

/wp-admin/admin.php?page=seo-link-genius_indexing&tab=advanced

SEO Rank Genius › Indexing & Sitemaps

Overview Submission Structured Data Advanced

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Advanced

Dynamic settings, caching & diagnostics

Save

Dynamic Settings

Dynamic Lastmod
Update lastmod when content changes

Exclude Paginated URLs
Skip /page/2/, /page/3/ in sitemaps

Canonical Settings

Canonical Enforcement
Only canonical URLs in sitemaps

Multilingual Support WPML Detected

Multilingual Sitemap Support

Cache & Performance

Clear Cache

Sitemap Diagnostics Debug

Run Diagnostics Flush Rewrite

Advanced tab — all five sections in one card with toggles, cache, and diagnostic actions.

Dynamic & canonical

These toggles control what URLs appear in your XML sitemaps and how fresh the metadata stays.

Dynamic LastmodAutomatically updates the <lastmod> date when a post is edited. Helps crawlers prioritize recently updated content.

Exclude Paginated URLsRemoves archive pagination URLs like /category/seo/page/2/ from sitemaps. Recommended for most blogs.

Canonical EnforcementOnly includes the canonical version of each URL. Prevents duplicate content from appearing in sitemaps when parameters or alternate URLs exist.

Dynamic Settings

Dynamic Lastmod

Exclude Paginated URLs

Canonical Settings

Canonical Enforcement

Dynamic Settings and Canonical Settings — toggle rows with on/off switches.

Multilingual

If WPML or Polylang is installed, SEO Rank Genius detects it automatically and shows a green badge next to the Multilingual Support section header.

WPML / Polylang detected When a multilingual plugin is active, enable Multilingual Sitemap Support to generate per-language sitemaps with hreflang tags. A green confirmation banner appears below the toggle.

Without a multilingual plugin, the section shows a gray info banner explaining that WPML or Polylang is required. No action needed on single-language sites.

Cache & performance

Sitemaps are cached for performance — regenerating on every request would slow large sites. The cache stores the generated XML until content changes or you manually clear it.

Cache & Performance

Sitemaps are cached for optimal performance. Clear the cache after significant content changes.

Clear Cache

Cache section — Clear Cache button refreshes all sitemap XML immediately.

Click Clear Cache after bulk imports, migrations, or plugin changes that affect URL structure. Normal post edits trigger automatic cache invalidation.

Sitemap diagnostics

The diagnostics section helps when sitemaps return blank pages, 404 errors, or incomplete URL lists. Two action buttons are available:

Run DiagnosticsChecks rewrite rules, file permissions, PHP memory, conflicting plugins, and sitemap accessibility. Results appear inline with pass/warning/fail status.

Flush RewriteRegenerates WordPress rewrite rules so /sitemap.xml routes resolve correctly. Equivalent to visiting Settings → Permalinks and clicking Save.

Sitemap Diagnostics Debug

If your sitemap shows a blank page, run diagnostics to identify the issue.

Run Diagnostics Flush Rewrite

✓ Rewrite rules — sitemap endpoint registered

✓ Sitemap accessible — HTTP 200 at /sitemap.xml

⚠ Cache stale — last cleared 14 days ago

Sitemap Diagnostics — run checks inline with pass, warning, and fail results.

Get SEO Rank Genius Indexing overview →

Troubleshooting

Sitemap returns blank or white page

Run Diagnostics on the Advanced tab. Common fixes: flush rewrite rules, clear sitemap cache, increase PHP memory limit, or deactivate a conflicting SEO plugin sitemap.

lastmod dates not updating

Confirm Dynamic Lastmod is toggled on and click Save. Clear the sitemap cache, then revisit /sitemap.xml and inspect a recently edited URL.

Duplicate URLs in sitemap

Enable Canonical Enforcement and Exclude Paginated URLs. Clear cache. If duplicates persist, check for another plugin generating its own sitemap.

Multilingual URLs missing

Verify WPML or Polylang is active, enable Multilingual Sitemap Support, save, and clear cache. Each language should appear as a separate sitemap index entry.

Changes not reflected after Save

Click Clear Cache after saving toggles. CDN or server-level page caching may also serve stale sitemap XML — purge those caches too.