Google or Yoast SEO Sitemaps?

[Colin]

On my new website I use the free version of ‘Yoast SEO’. I have just done a Google XML Sitemap and then got the following message:

The Google XML Sitemaps plugin(s) might cause issues when used in conjunction with Yoast SEO.

Both Yoast SEO and Google XML Sitemaps can create XML sitemaps. Having two XML sitemaps is not beneficial for search engines and might slow down your site.

Should I delete the Google Sitemap?

 

[Community]

Yes they both do the same thing, no point in having more bloat than is required.

 

[Subhodip]

Since you already have a Yoast SEO sitemap plugin and trying to do a Google XML sitemap, it might cause issues. This is the reason, “The Google XML sitemaps plugins might cause issues when used in conjunction with Yoast SEO” message is displayed when tried to do the same.

The main reason this should be avoided is because it confuses search engines like Google to understand the site structure. The two plugins working in conjunction for the same purpose might confuse Google or other search engines and might slow down your website. As a result, Google may fail to crawl through the important pages of your website that should be crawled by search engine to give a boost to its reachability.

In such a case, you have two options

• Disable sitemap feature from Yoast SEO
• Deactivating Google XML Sitemaps plugin

You can either Enable or Disable sitemap feature from the Features section of Yoast SEO. Moreover, both are used for same purpose and have similar functionalities. Therefore, there is no need to use both in conjunction.

Instead, one can choose and use any amongst the two options for creating sitemaps of their website. Sitemaps are a popular choice as it helps search engines discover and crawl through all pages of the website.