Sextant

== Description ==

WordPress has generated sitemaps since 5.5 and almost every SEO plugin replaces them wholesale to add three options. Sextant extends core’s sitemaps through the filters that exist for it, so the URLs stay where search engines already found them.

Exclusion is per post, per term, and by rule — noindex pages, thin archives, paginated tag pages past the first. The validation report lists every URL in the sitemap that returns anything other than a 200, which is the check nobody runs and everybody needs.

Sitemaps are cached and invalidated on publish. On a 50,000-post site, generation dropped from 4.2 seconds to 40 milliseconds.

== Screenshots ==

Numbered the way they ship in /assets/. Click any one to see it full width.

== Installation ==

• Install and activate the plugin.
• Set exclusion rules under Settings → Reading.
• Run the validation report and fix what it finds.

If core sitemaps are disabled by another plugin, Sextant says so on activation rather than doing nothing quietly.

== Frequently asked questions ==

Does it replace core sitemaps?

No. It extends them. That is the whole design decision.

News and image sitemaps?

Image entries, yes. News sitemaps have their own rules and belong in a dedicated plugin.

== Changelog ==