[wp-meta] [Making WordPress.org] #5287: Disable WP core XML sitemaps

[Making WordPress.org]

#5287: Disable WP core XML sitemaps
----------------------------+--------------------
 Reporter:  jonoaldersonwp  |      Owner:  (none)
     Type:  defect          |     Status:  new
 Priority:  high            |  Milestone:
Component:  General         |   Keywords:  seo
----------------------------+--------------------
 WP 5.5 brings XML sitemaps to WP core. Specifically, the new feature
 creates sitemaps for public post types (and some secondary content types),
 and, references those via the robots.txt file.

 Unfortunately, due to the complexity of the wp.org ecosystem, the
 behaviour of the feature 'out of the box' is sub-optimal.

 Specifically:

 - The sitemap index at https://wordpress.org/wp-sitemap.xml (and on
 Rosetta equivalents) in unrepresentative of wordpress.org's content; this
 will cause errors and issues with Google Search Console (and with Google's
 crawling/indexing/trust of the site).

 - The site already runs JetPack's XML sitemaps, which do a good-enough job
 of listing the 'deep' parts of the site which have a particular problem
 with discoverablity and freshness (plugins, themes, news).

 Given this, I suggest that we disable the feature. Ideally, we'd
 extensively filter and modify the output, but that'd take considerable
 scoping and resource (which is needed elsewhere).

 This can be managed via the `wp_sitemaps_is_enabled` filter; as described
 at https://wordpress.org/plugins/core-sitemaps/.

-- 
Ticket URL: <https://meta.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/5287>
Making WordPress.org <https://meta.trac.wordpress.org/>
Making WordPress.org