Native Sitemaps in WordPress

Since WordPress 5.5, native sitemaps have been available in WordPress. You no longer need an (SEO) plugin for this.
I’ m writing this because I now advise against using SEO plugins. Most SEO plugins have become overly complex, slow,
and may contain potential security vulnerabilities. If you want a secure and fast WordPress site, you should avoid
using SEO plugins. Most features are now available natively or can be added with simple extensions to the functions.php.

How to access the sitemap

Since WordPress 5.5, you can access the sitemap using the following URL:

https://meinwp.com/wp-sitemap.xml

You can then use this URL as your sitemap in Google Search Console or other services.

Sitemap requires the SimpleXML extension

If the following error appears when accessing sitemap.xml…

The XML sitemap could not be generated due to the missing SimpleXML extension

Then, the php-xml extension must be installed on the server.

Example for CentOS Linux:

yum install php-xml

With cloud providers, you can usually activate the extension. Instructions on how to do this are typically provided
in the provider’ s documentation.