How to generate/update a XML sitemap without plugins?

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I like to hardcode everything on my WordPress websites, without using any plugins. Is there any way to generate or update my sitemap everytime I publish/update a post on one of my Multisite blogs, without using plugins?

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4 comments

  1. The following code works right off the bat. Your sitemap will show up on:
    https://your-website-name.com/sitemap.xml

    Every time you create or update a page, post or custom post type it will show. Make sure to add the name of your custom post type:

    add_action( 'publish_post', 'ow_create_sitemap' );
add_action( 'publish_page', 'ow_create_sitemap' );
add_action( 'save_post',    'ow_create_sitemap' );

function ow_create_sitemap() {
    $postsForSitemap = get_posts(array(
        'numberposts' => -1,
        'orderby'     => 'modified',
        // 'custom_post' should be replaced with your own Custom Post Type (one or many)
        'post_type'   => array( 'post', 'page', 'custom_post' ),
        'order'       => 'DESC'
    ));

    $sitemap = '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>';
    $sitemap .= '<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9 http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9/sitemap.xsd">';

    foreach( $postsForSitemap as $post ) {
        setup_postdata( $post );

        $postdate = explode( " ", $post->post_modified );

        $sitemap .= '<url>'.
                    '<loc>' . get_permalink( $post->ID ) . '</loc>' .
                    '<lastmod>' . $postdate[0] . '</lastmod>' .
                    '<changefreq>monthly</changefreq>' .
                    '</url>';
      }

    $sitemap .= '</urlset>';

    $fp = fopen( ABSPATH . 'sitemap.xml', 'w' );

    fwrite( $fp, $sitemap );
    fclose( $fp );
}

  2. Before using the code provided in w3uiguru’s answer, I had to make some improvements that follow the accepted standard for XML files. The code is below:

    /* function to create sitemap.xml file in root directory of site  */
// add_action("publish_post", "eg_create_sitemap");
// add_action("publish_page", "eg_create_sitemap");
add_action( "save_post", "eg_create_sitemap" );
function eg_create_sitemap() {
    if ( str_replace( '-', '', get_option( 'gmt_offset' ) ) < 10 ) { 
        $tempo = '-0' . str_replace( '-', '', get_option( 'gmt_offset' ) ); 
    } else { 
        $tempo = get_option( 'gmt_offset' ); 
    }
    if( strlen( $tempo ) == 3 ) { $tempo = $tempo . ':00'; }
    $postsForSitemap = get_posts( array(
        'numberposts' => -1,
        'orderby'     => 'modified',
        'post_type'   => array( 'post', 'page' ),
        'order'       => 'DESC'
    ) );
    $sitemap .= '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>' . '<?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="' . 
        esc_url( home_url( '/' ) ) . 'sitemap.xsl"?>';
    $sitemap .= "n" . '<urlset xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9 http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9/sitemap.xsd" xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">' . "n";
    $sitemap .= "t" . '<url>' . "n" .
        "tt" . '<loc>' . esc_url( home_url( '/' ) ) . '</loc>' .
        "ntt" . '<lastmod>' . date( "Y-m-dTH:i:s", current_time( 'timestamp', 0 ) ) . $tempo . '</lastmod>' .
        "ntt" . '<changefreq>daily</changefreq>' .
        "ntt" . '<priority>1.0</priority>' .
        "nt" . '</url>' . "n";
    foreach( $postsForSitemap as $post ) {
        setup_postdata( $post);
        $postdate = explode( " ", $post->post_modified );
        $sitemap .= "t" . '<url>' . "n" .
            "tt" . '<loc>' . get_permalink( $post->ID ) . '</loc>' .
            "ntt" . '<lastmod>' . $postdate[0] . 'T' . $postdate[1] . $tempo . '</lastmod>' .
            "ntt" . '<changefreq>Weekly</changefreq>' .
            "ntt" . '<priority>0.5</priority>' .
            "nt" . '</url>' . "n";
    }
    $sitemap .= '</urlset>';
    $fp = fopen( ABSPATH . "sitemap.xml", 'w' );
    fwrite( $fp, $sitemap );
    fclose( $fp );
}

  3. I don’t know whether this works on multisite, but it is working perfect in a single WordPress installation for me.

    When you create/update any posts, or pages, it will generate a sitemap.xml file and update the links (URLs) with the most recent first (last modified).

    Copy and paste the below code in your active theme’s functions.php file:

    /* function to create sitemap.xml file in root directory of site  */        
// add_action("publish_post", "eg_create_sitemap");
// add_action("publish_page", "eg_create_sitemap");  
add_action( "save_post", "eg_create_sitemap" );   
function eg_create_sitemap() {
    $postsForSitemap = get_posts( array(
        'numberposts' => -1,
        'orderby'     => 'modified',
        'post_type'   => array( 'post', 'page' ),
        'order'       => 'DESC'
    ) );
    $sitemap = '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>';
    $sitemap .= "n" . '<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">' . "n";    
    foreach( $postsForSitemap as $post ) {
        setup_postdata( $post );   
        $postdate = explode( " ", $post->post_modified );   
        $sitemap .= "t" . '<url>' . "n" .
            "tt" . '<loc>' . get_permalink( $post->ID ) . '</loc>' .
            "ntt" . '<lastmod>' . $postdate[0] . '</lastmod>' .
            "ntt" . '<changefreq>monthly</changefreq>' .
            "nt" . '</url>' . "n";
    }     
    $sitemap .= '</urlset>';     
    $fp = fopen( ABSPATH . "sitemap.xml", 'w' );
    fwrite( $fp, $sitemap );
    fclose( $fp );
}

  4. I changed the code from @locutor-antonio-cezar a little bit as I was looking for a very specific use case. I needed a sitemap specially written for Google News. What is different? The whole markup follows the rules. In my specific case, I limited the number of posts to 20. Also posts older than 2 days disappear. Maybe somebody needs this:

    /* function to create sitemap.xml file in root directory of site  */
// add_action("publish_post", "eg_create_sitemap");
// add_action("publish_page", "eg_create_sitemap");
add_action( "save_post", "eg_create_sitemap" );
function eg_create_sitemap() {
    if ( str_replace( '-', '', get_option( 'gmt_offset' ) ) < 10 ) { 
        $tempo = '-0' . str_replace( '-', '', get_option( 'gmt_offset' ) ); 
    } else { 
        $tempo = get_option( 'gmt_offset' ); 
    }
    if( strlen( $tempo ) == 3 ) { $tempo = $tempo . ':00'; }
    $postsForSitemap = get_posts( array(
        'numberposts' => 20,
        'orderby'     => 'modified',
        'post_type'   => array( 'post', 'page' ),
        'order'       => 'DESC',
        'date_query' => array(
            'after' => date('Y-m-d', strtotime('-2 days')) 
        )
    ) );
    $sitemap .= '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>';
    $sitemap .= "n" . '<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9" xmlns:news="http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap-news/0.9" xmlns:xhtml="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xmlns:mobile="http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap-mobile/1.0" xmlns:image="http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap-image/1.1" xmlns:video="http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap-video/1.1">' . "n";
    foreach( $postsForSitemap as $post ) {
        setup_postdata( $post);
        $postdate = explode( " ", $post->post_modified );
        $sitemap .= "t" . "<url>" . "n";
        $sitemap .= "tt" . "<loc>" . get_permalink( $post->ID ) . '</loc>';
        $sitemap .= "tt" . '<news:news>' . "n";
        $sitemap .= "ttt" . '<news:publication>' . "n";
        $sitemap .= "tttt" . '<news:name><![CDATA[ YOUR SITE ]]></news:name>' . "n";
        $sitemap .= "tttt" . '<news:language>YOUR LANGUAGE</news:language>' . "n";
        $sitemap .= "ttt" . '</news:publication>' . "n";
        $sitemap .= "ttt<news:publication_date>" . $postdate[0] . 'T' . $postdate[1] . $tempo . "</news:publication_date>n";
        $sitemap .= "ttt" . '<news:title><![CDATA[' . get_the_title( $post) . ']]></news:title>' . "n";
        $sitemap .= "tt" . '</news:news>' . "n";
        $sitemap .= "t" . '</url>' . "n";
    }
    $sitemap .= '</urlset>';
    $fp = fopen( ABSPATH . "sitemap_news.xml", 'w' );
    fwrite( $fp, $sitemap );
    fclose( $fp );
}