78
XML Sitemap & Google News
A newsroom hero that occasionally leaves you staring at a blank screen.
HealthyGrowing
78/100
The news sitemap features are great but reliability issues and limited free tools cause frustration.
Active installs
~129,000
our estimate · wp.org shows 100k+
Rating
4.4★
84 ratings
Trend · vs a year ago
+10%
Growing
658 → 722 installs/day
Downloads over time
real new installs per day · release spikes shown separately from the trend2025-04-302025-08-082025-11-162026-02-232026-06-03
organicrelease spikerelease tailorganic trend · 14d rolling median
Growing · +10% in the last year
658/day a year ago→722/day today
Reviews
what people actually sayXML Sitemap & Google News is a generally well-regarded sitemap plugin valued for its Google News support and clean interface, but recurring complaints about broken functionality, limited free features, and occasional compatibility issues temper its reputation.
What people like
- +Sitemaps are accepted and processed by Google Search Console without issues×2
- +Google News tab traffic benefit reported by long-term users
- +Automatic submission to Google and Bing
- +Clean and solid WordPress backend interface
- +Responsive support that helps resolve setup issues
- +Regularly updated, maintaining stable operation
Common complaints
- −Core sitemap functionality broken or returning errors for some users, with only the news sitemap working×2
- −Most features unavailable in the free edition, requiring a paid upgrade
- −Google Search Console reports a temporary processing error and stops crawling the sitemap (since 5.4.9)
- −Category and tag sitemaps not generating
- −Conflict with WordPress user management — unable to add users in the backend when the XML sitemap feed is active
- −Google News feature activation is not intuitive and located in a non-obvious place
- −White screen or blank output on the main sitemap link
Review trustMostly organic
- 4.41★Verified rating — holds steady vs the raw 4.40★
- 4%One-shot reviewers — most reviewers are active community members
- past spikeReview timing — up to 29% of all reviews landed in a single month
Reviews per month · 5★ vs lower
2023-08-192025-01-102026-06-04
5★ reviews1–4★ reviews
All-time ratings · 84 total
Latest reviews · 85 analyzed
- 2026-04-29★★★★★Best Sitemap PluginAlex Oreshkin
- 2026-01-27★★★★★perfect plugin with great support!momocamel
- 2026-01-25★★★★★Finally!kenfortune
- 2024-11-05★★★★★Google Error, # Auffindbarkeit Sitemaps Vorübergehender Verarbeitungsfehlerkolniu
- 2024-09-06★★★★★Worth sticking withncaross
- 2024-02-17★★★★★Really works with custom post typesKrzysztof Busłowicz
- 2023-07-28★★★★★Tolles Plugin!RaHa
- 2023-04-14★★★★★white screen not workingreadysite
- 2022-11-30★★★★★Great job, merci !web1media
- 2022-08-20★★★★★Junky Sitemap PluginNelson J. Opoku
Releases
recent versions from WordPress.org SVNFor developers & the curious
the raw signals behind the grade — none of this is on the friendly summary aboveDownload signals
Baselines are computed on organic days only — release spikes and their tails are excluded, so they're not inflated by the auto-update wave.
1,561
Baseline · median of last 7 organic days
954
Prior 7-day baseline
1,634
Floor · 25th percentile over 14 days
21,339
Mean release-day peak (30d)
1,254
Latest day · 2026-06-03(organic)
+63.6%
Week-over-week organic trend
Review signals
Concentration and drive-by metrics drive the review-burst and fake-review flags. 30–40% solo reviewers is normal; we only flag the extremes.
29%
Max month share · biggest single 30-day window
2.33
Distribution CV · <0.6 even, >1.5 bursty
81%
5★ share in analyzed sample
4%
Solo reviewers · only this one wp.org activity
—
Volume velocity · last 6mo vs prior 6mo
4.44 → 4.41★
Sample avg · raw → solo-filtered