[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #54010: Redirect from /sitemap.xml to /wp-sitemap.xml needs to be 301 and not 302

[WordPress Trac]

#54010: Redirect from /sitemap.xml to /wp-sitemap.xml needs to be 301 and not 302
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 Reporter:  RedBMedia     |       Owner:  (none)
     Type:  defect (bug)  |      Status:  new
 Priority:  normal        |   Milestone:  Awaiting Review
Component:  Sitemaps      |     Version:  5.5
 Severity:  normal        |  Resolution:
 Keywords:                |     Focuses:
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Comment (by jonoaldersonwp):

 Hey, Joe!

 I'm on the fence. 302s are definitely problematic in that search engines
 won't typically/officially pass equity through them. However, there are a
 few moving parts here:

 - If a user changes their XML sitemap plugin, 301s are more likely to be
 cached (by browsers and intermediary systems like CDNs); that might cause
 problems when there's a long expiration window
 - We don't need to worry about equity in the case of sitemaps
 - If users are entering the wrong URL for their sitemap, this feels at
 least in part like a user/education problem
 - Submitting invalid sitemaps to Google Search Console / similar doesn't
 typically cause any harm

 I think that the caching issue is significant enough to warrant us
 sticking with a 302, even though that's suboptimal.

 Joe, do you have any examples of GSC not recognizing a 302'd sitemap? In
 my (admittedly brief, and singular) testing, it seems to follow it to the
 destination successfully. Might be other factors at play, though!

 It might be a better route to get the GSC folks to fix this at their end;
 there are undoubtedly myriad sites - beyond WP - which serve sitemaps via
 a 302 redirect!

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Ticket URL: <https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/54010#comment:4>
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