Review multilingual sitemap output

POM Translate does not create a second sitemap system. Rank Math or Yoast remains responsible for the site's sitemap index and for deciding which objects are included.

Rank Math behavior

For each Rank Math sitemap entry, POM Translate:

• normalizes the main loc to the base-locale URL;
• builds localized URLs for available, non-excluded locales;
• adds those URLs as hreflang alternates;
• preserves existing alternates while replacing duplicate language keys.

Rank Math therefore keeps one base entry with alternate-language information rather than requiring duplicate WordPress posts.

Yoast behavior

POM Translate normalizes Yoast post sitemap URLs to the base locale. Head hreflang links still advertise localized versions when visitors and crawlers open the page.

The current Yoast integration does not add the Rank Math-style alternate array to every sitemap entry. Verify term and custom sitemap providers separately instead of assuming identical output between SEO plugins.

Protected XML responses

Sitemap and XML requests are excluded from normal HTML output translation. Root files stay at paths such as /sitemap_index.xml; POM Translate does not add /es/ or another locale prefix to those machine-readable files.

Review a sitemap

1. Open the sitemap index generated by the active SEO plugin.
2. Confirm it loads from the site root.
3. Open representative post, page, product, and taxonomy child sitemaps.
4. Confirm each main URL uses the expected base-locale route.
5. For Rank Math, inspect the alternate-language entries.
6. Follow every tested URL and check canonical and head hreflang output.
7. Confirm excluded or noindexed objects are handled by the SEO plugin's sitemap policy.

Important boundary

POM Translate does not decide indexability and does not remove incomplete translations from a sitemap automatically. Configure noindex, exclusion, or sitemap settings deliberately before submitting the sitemap to search engines.

Clear the SEO plugin's sitemap cache after changing language configuration, exclusions, or localized slugs.