Custom XML Sitemap Names

If you need a different file name for your individual hreflang XML Sitemap files, you can set that to anything you want as long as it creates a unique name. This is often needed when using HREFLang Builder for multiple projects on the same domain or to ensure Dev Teams know what file does for the site.  We will name the XML sitemap we will name it accordingly. 

Required Setting:  No.  It is unnecessary to change this field unless you need a unique name.  

Default Setting: The default naming convention uses the format “href-sitemap-cc-ll.xml”  where the ll (language) and ccc (country) are taken from the settings in the system. This ensures it is unique. Unless you add a custom name, we assign a default name to any XML sitemap file. 

Note:  If you need/want to add a prefix to the default file name, use the “Global File Name Prefix.” If you do not set this, it will take the default name.   

Steps to Add Custom File Names

Step 1 – Go to the main Edit screen to present the list of markets.

Step 2 – Click the “eye” icon to open the Custom File Naming option.

Step 3 – Type the custom name you wish for this market.

It can be any name you want just unique. Below are a few examples from clients.

In this example, the client needed to have a unique number so they could easily see a list of sequential numbers in the folder as well as run a script to ensure their internal process moved them all into the correct folder.

This example the client broke their XML deployment into categories so they needed to differentiate from other sitemaps. Note. This is typically done the global prefix to append “products” to all sitemaps but since they wanted the full name of country and language they had to use a custom name.

Step 4 – Click Update to update and save the edit. The custom string will be appended during the next update.