EP Sitemap

EP Sitemap generates a valid XML sitemap for your PageMotor site, served dynamically at /sitemap.xml. Always up-to-date, supports the sitemaps.org schema, and optionally includes image references and priority hints.

Published by ElmsPark Studio.

Why a sitemap

Search engines use sitemaps as a hint about what to crawl. Without one, they rely on link-following, which can miss pages with no internal links pointing to them. With one, every page you care about is discoverable.

Google Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools, and most other search services let you submit a sitemap URL for faster indexing.

What EP Sitemap does

• Dynamic generation. Every request to /sitemap.xml renders the current state of your site. No file to manually rebuild.
• Valid schema. Passes the sitemaps.org validation.
• Images included. Every page’s images are referenced with <image:image> entries, giving Google richer context.
• Priority hints. Set per-page priority (0.0 to 1.0) to tell search engines which pages matter most.
• Last modified timestamps from page metadata.
• Exclusions. Draft, unpublished, and marked-noindex pages are excluded.
• Paginated for large sites (splits into multiple sitemap files linked via a sitemap index).

Requirements

• PageMotor 0.8.2b or later
• EP Suite base class

Installation

1. Download ep-sitemap.zip from the EP Suite downloads page.
2. Upload via Plugins → Manage Plugins. Activate.
3. Visit https://yoursite.com/sitemap.xml. You should see the XML.
4. Submit the URL to Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.

Settings

• Include images. On by default. Adds image references to each URL entry.
• Default priority. Priority hint for pages that don’t set their own. 0.5 is the sitemaps.org default.
• Default change frequency. How often each URL changes (daily, weekly, monthly).
• Exclude paths. List of URL patterns to skip (e.g. /admin/*, /private/*).

Per-page overrides

On any page’s content options:

• Sitemap priority. 0.0 to 1.0.
• Sitemap change frequency. Always, hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, never.
• Exclude from sitemap. Checkbox to keep this page out entirely.

Large site handling

Once your site has more than 50,000 URLs (the sitemaps.org limit per file), EP Sitemap switches to a sitemap index model:

• /sitemap.xml becomes the index.
• /sitemap-1.xml, /sitemap-2.xml, etc. hold the actual URLs in chunks.

This happens automatically; no config needed.

robots.txt

Add this to your robots.txt (via EP Txt Files or however you manage it):

Sitemap: https://yoursite.com/sitemap.xml

Search engines that crawl robots.txt auto-discover your sitemap.

Troubleshooting

“/sitemap.xml returns 404”

Check the plugin is active. Check nothing else at your domain is intercepting /sitemap.xml (some hosting providers serve a default one).

“Sitemap is valid but Google says it’s empty”

Google takes time to process. Check back in a day. Also submit in Search Console explicitly.

“A specific page isn’t appearing in the sitemap”

Check:

• Page is Published.
• Page isn’t marked Exclude from sitemap.
• Page isn’t marked Noindex in its SEO options.
• Page URL doesn’t match an Exclude path in settings.

“Images aren’t showing in Google image search”

Sitemap images are a hint, not a guarantee. Google picks what to show. Your images need alt text and good context to get picked up.

Feedback and corrections

For a quick question about this plugin, EP Support inside your admin is the fastest option. The chat widget sits on every EP plugin settings page and knows which one you’re on, with starter questions and links preloaded for that exact screen.

For anything bigger — a bug report, a feature request, or a “how do I…” that needs a real reply — open a ticket at help.elmspark.com. A real person, helped by AI, writes the reply. Usually within a few hours. Tickets don’t disappear into the void.