How to Exclude Content from Your XML Sitemap

You may have content on your site that you don't want to submit to search engines.

If that's the case, All in One SEO can help you.

Content is typically submitted to search engines using sitemaps. All in One SEO generates sitemaps that contain your content and it notifies search engines when you've published, changed or deleted content on your site.

Search engines can also find content on their own by either crawling your site and following internal links, or by following links from someone else's site to your content. This is less reliable and takes longer for them to find your content.

You can choose to exclude content from your XML Sitemap so that search engines aren't notified when the content is published, changed, or deleted.

Excluding Content from Your XML Sitemap

To get started, go to Sitemaps in the All in One SEO menu.

You should see the General Sitemap screen, scroll down to the Advanced Settings section and click the toggle to display the Advanced Settings.

Here you’ll see settings for Exclude Posts / Pages and Exclude Terms.

Excluding Posts

In the Exclude Posts / Pages field, start typing the title of any post, page or other post type in this field and a drop down will appear that shows matching content. Click on the content you want to exclude and it will be added in the field.

You can then repeat this by typing the title of any content and selecting it.

Excluding Terms

In the Exclude Terms field, type the name of any category, tag or other taxonomy term and a drop down will appear that shows matching content. Click on the content you want to exclude and it will be added in the field.