WordPress shows author archive in sitemap even if there are no posts

[zodiac1978]

It looks like this should be avoided: If there are no posts in the WP installation (only pages), the wp-sitemap.xml still contains the author archive. And if you follow the link, you get a 404 error.

This couldn't make sense for SEO ...

[amisiewicz]

Yes whenever page is added, author archive is present in the sitemap.xml

Is this a bug, I don't know

About 404 error, I think it depends on a theme (that was not an issue in my local wordpress-develop installation)

If this is a bug, I'm willing to provide a patch (just not sure about that)

For now, I'm leaving the code to possibly fix this as a use of a filter

<?php
add_filter( 'wp_sitemaps_users_query_args', function( $args ) {

        if ( ( $key = array_search( 'page', $args['has_published_posts'] ) ) !== false ) {
                unset( $args['has_published_posts'][ $key ] );
        }
        return $args;

}, 10, 1 );

[zodiac1978]

Found this:

Should only be generated for those authors with at least 1 published post.

Source: ​https://github.com/GoogleChromeLabs/wp-sitemaps/issues/23

Looks like this is a bug then.

[swissspidy]

The WP_User_Query in WP_Sitemaps_Users uses 'has_published_posts' to only list users with at least 1 published post in any post type (including pages, excluding attachments).

Since pages are not normally shown in the author archives, we could add unset( $public_post_types['page'] ); here:

​https://github.com/WordPress/wordpress-develop/blob/e2a747662ee018262a86ddfbc38cd7292bc911bb/src/wp-includes/sitemaps/providers/class-wp-sitemaps-users.php#L139-L140

That said, the author archive for a user with no published posts returns a 200 status (albeit an empty page), not a 404. So... not sure if that needs to be changed at all 🤷‍♂️

Edit: also, what happens if a site actually does show pages in author archives too?

[zodiac1978]

Replying to swissspidy:

That said, the author archive for a user with no published posts returns a 200 status (albeit an empty page), not a 404. So... not sure if that needs to be changed at all 🤷‍♂️

Yes, that's true. But still not very helpful to report an empty page to Google, or not?

Edit: also, what happens if a site actually does show pages in author archives too?

I'm not sure if an edge case like this should stop us fixing this for the 99% others.

But I'm just looking at my installations and the missing UI to disable the sitemap with no real content.

If you think this is technically correct and needs no fixing, then we can close it. From a UX point of view, I'm still finding this very confusing.

[swissspidy]

Let's just do it.

• Adding unset( $public_post_types['page'] );
• Adding a test to verify the new behavior

Trac Ticket -> https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/57816
This PR addresses the issue of including users in the user sitemap who have not published any posts but have published pages.

To resolve this, we have implemented a modification. By using the unset( $public_post_typespage? ); function, we remove the public post type "page" from the query arguments. This ensures that users who have only published pages are not included in the user sitemap.

Trac ticket: https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/57816

Thanks for your contribution!

As this change needs an accompanying unit test, I have just opened another PR to add one: #4900

I'm closing yours in favor of the new one. But don't worry, you should still get props for your contribution! 🙂

[swissspidy]

Props @niravsherasiya7707 for the PR. I just added some unit tests. This should be good to go now.

@pbiron Would love to get your review on this one

[huzaifaalmesbah]

Test Report

I Test 4900.diff ✅ working

Environment

OS: macOS m1
WordPress 6.4-alpha-56267-src
PHP 7.4.33
nginx/1.25.2
MySQL 5.7.43
Browser: Chrome 116.0.5845.140
Theme: Twenty Twenty v2.3
Active Plugins: No plugins activated.

Expected Results

✅ Don't show the author's sitemap if there are no posts

Actual Results

✅ After Applying Patch. working properly

Before Applying Patch

After Applying Patch

[swissspidy]

In 56708:

Sitemaps: do not list users who only authored pages.

Author archives are only generated for users who created at least one post.
Prevent adding author archives to the XML sitemap for users who only authored pages
as the links would otherwise result in a 404.

Props zodiac1978, huzaifaalmesbah.
Fixes #57816.

https://core.trac.wordpress.org/changeset/56708