Sitemaps

Sitemaps can be a complicated process when using WordPress in a headless environment. Thankfully, Faust takes care of all your sitemap needs through creation of a file within the pages directory.

0. Prerequisites

Ensure that you have completed the steps in the following pages before proceeding.

• Basic setup

1. Enable Search Engine Visibility

1. In your WordPress Admin, go to Settings > Reading.

2. Uncheck the “Discourage search engines from indexing this site” box.

3. Visit the sitemap url (e.g. https://[your-domain.com]/wp-sitemap.xml) on the WordPress domain to ensure the sitemap is loading correctly.

   

2. Create sitemap.xml.js

Go to the root of your Faust.js app. Navigate to the /pages directory. Within the pages directory, create a file and name it sitemap.xml.js.

In the sitemap.xml.js you just created, copy and paste this code block:

import { getSitemapProps } from "@faustwp/core";
 
export default function Sitemap() {}
 
export function getServerSideProps(ctx) {
	return getSitemapProps(ctx, {
		frontendUrl: process.env.FRONTEND_URL,
	});
}

This file does the following:

• Imports the getSitemapProps function from Faust.js.
• Exports a default Sitemap component.
• Uses Next.js’ getServerSideProps to fetch sitemap data.
• Passes frontendUrl to getSitemapProps.

Save the file and run npm run dev in your terminal and visit localhost:3000/sitemap.xml. You now will dynamically serve WordPress content to your headless site through the sitemap.

3. Defining Next.js Pages for Sitemaps

Since we are using Headless WordPress, the front-end URLs need to be on the sitemap as well. Within the same sitemap.xml.js file, simply add a pages property array and place the relative paths of Next.js in the objects within the array like so:

import { getSitemapProps } from "@faustwp/core";
export default function Sitemap() {}
 
export function getServerSideProps(ctx) {
	return getSitemapProps(ctx, {
		frontendUrl: process.env.FRONTEND_URL,
		pages: [
			{
				path: "/about",
				changefreq: "monthly",
			},
			{
				path: "/",
			},
		],
	});
}

Run the dev server again and visit the sitemap URL. You now have WordPress content and Next.js content in your Faust app.

4. Changing the sitemap URL for other WP SEO plugins

If you prefer to use a different sitemap instead of the default one provided by WordPress, Faust allows integration with other WordPress SEO plugins like Rank Math or Yoast SEO.

Simply update the sitemapIndexPath argument to point to the plugin’s sitemap URL.

Here is an example for the Rank Math plugin:

import { getSitemapProps } from "@faustwp/core";
export default function Sitemap() {}
 
export function getServerSideProps(ctx) {
	return getSitemapProps(ctx, {
		sitemapIndexPath: "sitemap_index.xml",
		frontendUrl: process.env.FRONTEND_URL,
	});
}