Exclude Child URLs from XML Sitemap Generator (Wordpress)

[markadoi84]

Hi all,

I was recommended the XML Sitemap Generator for Wordpress by the very helpful Keith Bloemendaal and John Pring - however I can't seem to exclude child URLs.

There is a section Exclude items  and a subsection Exclude posts.  I have tried inputting the URLs for the pages I don't want in the sitemap, however that didn't work.  So I read that you have to include a list of "IDs" - not sure where on earth to find that info, tried the page name and the post= number from the URL, however neither worked.

I hope somebody can point me in the right direction - and apologies, I am a Wordpress novice, and I got no answers from the Wordpress forums so turned right back to SEOmoz!

Cheers.

[kbloemendaal]

Great question, and WP really should make this easier!

http://businessaccent.com/2009/06/08/what-is-my-wordpress-post-id-number-and-how-can-i-find-it/  This article explains one way to see it, also if you open up the post/page in the admin panel to edit it you can just look in your browser to see the url which will have the post ID in it... IE: www.yoursite.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=615&action=edit (615 is the post ID)

Hope that helped

[markadoi84]

Hi Keith,

Thanks once again for a quick response.  I have actually tried that method, however when I check the live sitemap I can still see the pages in my sitemap.  Very frustrating!  Is it that the sitemap doesn't update live straight away?  And just to confirm, I am clicking "Update Options" at the bottom - quite often it'll be something stupid like that!

Thanks,

Mark

[kbloemendaal]

It may take some time for it to propagate to Google if that is what you are asking. Are you trying to block the pages/posts completely from search engines?

[markadoi84]

I'm just trying to exclude these child URLs from the sitemap - in future I may block them entirely, but I certainly don't want to submit a sitemap with these URLs and then contradict that in robots.txt.

I have used the Post ID numbers to exclude the pages from the sitemap, however they remain in place.

Thanks once again for your assistance and quick responses!

[kbloemendaal]

Did you try to generate a new sitemap after clicking update options and then submitting it to webmaster tools?

Generally it will only update when you add/delete pages on it's own.

[markadoi84]

AH!  You did it Keith - I thought clicking 'update' at the bottom would do it, but there's a little link hidden in some text at the top saying "rebuild the sitemap manually".

Finally it's done, thanks so much for your help!

Mark