Both last 10+ years of Google's search-crawler indexing changes AND the rise of A.I. aggressively crawling for data 2023-25+ have lead us to needing a better initial set up as well as providing the ability for a site's manager to TLC there way to better SEO, SERP, and AEO/GEO when needed.
See the GitHub Issue #75 for the initial details and examples.
In brief, DNN automatically provides /SiteMap.aspx. Its delivered with the XML MIME Type and works well enough, though
less so moving forward. AccuTheme now includes dnn/sitemap.xml which is a <sitemapindex> and contains pointers to
additional sitemap files. The first entry in the list is always the DNN generated /SiteMap.aspx.
Important: when registering the (new) site in GSC, the intention is to now provide the sitemap index, so in GSC you would
add clientdomain.com/sitemap.xml, NOT the DNN generated .aspx version!
In the VS Code managed project (AccuTheme-Tw4), usually ABBV2026-Tw4,
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Manually TLC/Curate a
dnn/site-custom.xmlto handle any (landing) pages or URLs that are not properly exposed by DNN in the default generated SiteMap.aspx. Don't forget to ensure its in the sitemap index! -
Hook up Generated sitemaps! Add
sitemap-generated.xmlto the index. As a possible example, imagine adding a feature to either EasyDNNnews module or 2sxc News app where you generate and enhance/perfect sitemap pages list from the actual articles and meta data.
From controlling the dates to carefully curating your URLs in association with your Canonicals, you now have the tools in place to do a good, better, or best job based on your efforts.
Sitemap Extensions (like News Sitemaps) are a great way to tell Google about the different kinds of content and their metadata that you're using on your site. There are definitions for News, Image, and Video sitemaps and they can be combined.