Spatz SEO handles XML sitemaps and canonical tags automatically the moment you activate the plugin — no manual file editing, no separate sitemap plugins, and no risk of duplicate URL headaches. This guide walks you through exactly what gets generated, what you can control, and how to confirm that everything is working correctly for your site.
How Spatz SEO Generates Your XML Sitemap
Once Spatz SEO is active, your sitemap is available at yoursite.com/sitemap.xml. You don’t need to create or upload anything. The plugin generates the sitemap dynamically, which means it updates automatically every time you publish, update, or delete content.
The sitemap index file acts as a table of contents, breaking your content into smaller, organised sub-sitemaps. A typical WordPress site with Spatz SEO active will see sub-sitemaps for:
- Posts — every published blog post or custom post type you’ve included
- Pages — static pages like your homepage, About, and Contact
- Categories and tags — taxonomy archive pages, if you’ve chosen to include them
- Authors — author archive pages (can be excluded if your site has a single author)
Splitting content this way matters because Google and other search engines handle sitemap index files efficiently. Rather than downloading one enormous file, the crawler fetches only the sub-sitemaps it needs, which is particularly helpful on large sites with thousands of posts.
Each URL entry in the sitemap includes a lastmod timestamp — the date the content was last modified. Spatz SEO pulls this directly from WordPress’s post-modified date, so it’s always accurate. Some plugins invent or round these dates; Spatz SEO does not.
What the Sitemap Includes (and What It Leaves Out)
A good sitemap isn’t just a list of every URL on your site — it’s a curated list of the pages you actually want indexed. Spatz SEO applies sensible defaults that match what most WordPress site owners need, while giving you control to override them.
By default, the sitemap excludes the following:
- Pages and posts set to noindex — if you’ve told search engines not to index something, it doesn’t belong in the sitemap
- Password-protected content
- Draft and pending posts
- WordPress utility pages like login, admin, and feed URLs
- Attachment pages (individual pages WordPress creates for media files — rarely useful for SEO)
This automatic filtering is one of the most practical things Spatz SEO does for you. Submitting a sitemap full of noindex pages sends a confusing signal to Google — you’re simultaneously saying “don’t index this” and “please visit this.” Keeping those URLs out of the sitemap removes that contradiction.
In the Spatz SEO settings panel, you can go to the Sitemap section and toggle entire content types on or off. If you run a blog-only site and your tag archives add no unique value, you can exclude them in a couple of clicks. Custom post types registered by your theme or other plugins will also appear here so you can decide whether to include them.
How Canonical Tags Work in Spatz SEO
A canonical tag is a small line of HTML in the <head> of a page that tells search engines: “This is the definitive version of this content.” It’s the primary tool for preventing duplicate content penalties when the same (or very similar) content is accessible at multiple URLs.
Spatz SEO adds canonical tags automatically to every indexable page on your site. For the vast majority of pages, the canonical simply points to itself — the page’s own URL. This self-referencing canonical is best practice; it explicitly confirms to Google which URL you consider authoritative, even when there’s no duplication problem.
Where Spatz SEO’s canonical handling gets genuinely useful is in the situations that trip up most WordPress sites:
- Pagination: When a category archive spans multiple pages (/page/2/, /page/3/), each paginated page gets its own accurate canonical — not a blanket redirect back to page one, which would be wrong.
- URL parameters: If your site appends query strings like ?ref=newsletter or ?color=blue, Spatz SEO canonicalises back to the clean URL so those variations don’t fragment your link equity.
- HTTP vs HTTPS and trailing slashes: Spatz SEO respects your WordPress site URL setting and produces consistent canonicals, eliminating the common problem of the same page being indexed with and without a trailing slash.
- The homepage: WordPress can make your homepage accessible at both yoursite.com and yoursite.com/index.php. Spatz SEO sets the canonical to your primary domain URL.
You can also set a custom canonical on any individual post or page. Inside the Spatz SEO meta box (visible below the editor on any post or page), there’s a canonical URL field. If you’re republishing content that originally appeared elsewhere, or consolidating two pages into one, you enter the preferred URL there and Spatz SEO outputs it in the <head> immediately.
Does Spatz SEO Conflict with WordPress’s Built-In Canonical?
WordPress has output a basic self-referencing canonical tag via the rel_canonical() function since version 4.6. It’s worth knowing that Spatz SEO overrides this with its own, more complete implementation — so you never end up with duplicate or conflicting canonical tags in your page source.
Similarly, if you’re migrating from another SEO plugin like Yoast SEO or Rank Math, Spatz SEO imports your existing canonical overrides and sitemap exclusion settings during the migration wizard. You won’t lose the manual overrides you’ve already set. After migration, you should deactivate the old plugin completely — running two SEO plugins that both output canonicals and sitemaps is a reliable way to create the exact problems you’re trying to solve.
How to Verify Your Sitemap and Canonicals Are Working
Setting things up is half the job. Confirming they’re working correctly is the other half. Here’s how to do both quickly.
Checking your sitemap
Start by visiting yoursite.com/sitemap.xml in your browser. You should see a formatted XML index file listing your sub-sitemaps. If you see a 404 error, check that WordPress pretty permalinks are enabled — go to Settings → Permalinks in your WordPress dashboard and click Save (even without changing anything) to flush rewrite rules.
Next, submit your sitemap to Google Search Console:
- Log in to Google Search Console
- Select your property
- Go to Sitemaps in the left menu
- Enter sitemap.xml in the field and click Submit
Search Console will show you how many URLs were discovered versus how many were indexed. A large gap between those two numbers is worth investigating — it usually means some pages have technical issues or thin content that Google is choosing not to index, which is separate from your sitemap setup itself.
You can also run your sitemap URL through a free XML sitemap validator to check for formatting errors, missing lastmod dates, or URLs that return non-200 HTTP status codes.
Checking your canonical tags
The fastest way to verify a canonical tag is to open any page on your site, right-click, and choose View Page Source. Search (Ctrl+F or Cmd+F) for rel=”canonical”. You should see one result, and the URL inside the href attribute should be the clean, preferred version of that page’s URL.
For a more systematic check, the URL Inspection tool in Google Search Console shows you the canonical Google has detected versus the one you’ve declared. If they match, you’re in good shape. If Google has chosen a different canonical than the one you declared, it’s usually a signal that Google has found stronger signals pointing elsewhere — perhaps another URL has more backlinks, or there’s a redirect chain confusing things.
Browser extensions like Detailed SEO Extension (for Chrome) let you see canonical tags, noindex status, and other meta information in one click without digging into page source each time — handy if you’re auditing multiple pages quickly.
What to do if something looks wrong
If a page is missing from your sitemap when it should be there, check two things first: whether the page is set to noindex in its Spatz SEO meta box, and whether the post type is toggled off in your sitemap settings. Those two causes account for most missing-URL questions.
If a canonical is pointing to the wrong URL, check whether a custom canonical has been manually entered in the Spatz SEO meta box for that post or page — a previous editor may have set one that’s now outdated. Clearing the field returns it to the automatic canonical.
A Quick Summary
Spatz SEO takes two of the most error-prone parts of technical SEO — sitemaps and canonicals — and handles them automatically with sensible defaults. Your sitemap stays current without any maintenance, noindex pages are kept out of it automatically, and canonical tags are applied consistently across every page type WordPress can generate. The manual controls are there when you need them, but most sites won’t need to touch them often.
If you haven’t yet submitted your sitemap to Google Search Console, do that today. It’s a five-minute task and it gives Google a reliable roadmap to your content — which is exactly the kind of foundation that pays off as your site grows.