## **🗺️ Where to Find the Search Atlas Sitemap Tool**

Search Atlas includes a built-in sitemap generation tool — you do **not** need a third-party plugin such as Yoast or Rank Math to create your sitemap. The tool is available directly inside the platform.

1. Log in to your Search Atlas account.
2. In the left sidebar, click **Site Metrics**.
3. Select your target site from the site list.
4. Look for the **Sitemap** option within the Site Metrics section for your property.

If you do not see the Sitemap option, confirm that a site has been added and verified under your account. Only verified properties expose the full set of site tools.

## **⚙️ How to Generate or Regenerate Your Sitemap**

1. Navigate to **Site Metrics** in the left sidebar and open your site.
2. Open the **Sitemap** tool.
3. Click **Generate Sitemap** (or **Regenerate** if one already exists).
4. Wait for the process to complete — generation time depends on the size of your site.
5. Copy the sitemap URL provided, then submit it to **Google Search Console** under **Sitemaps** to ensure Google crawls it promptly.

The output is a standard **XML sitemap** that lists your URLs with their last-modified dates, change frequency, and priority values — fully compatible with Google, Bing, and other search engines.

## **🚨 Troubleshooting: Google Reads HTML Instead of XML**

If Google Search Console reports that your sitemap is being read as **HTML** rather than XML, the sitemap file is likely being intercepted by your hosting environment before it reaches the crawler. This is common on sites hosted behind **Cloudflare** or **Hostinger**.

**Steps to resolve this:**

- **Cloudflare users:** Log in to Cloudflare, go to **Rules → Page Rules** (or **Cache Rules**), and add a rule to **bypass cache** for the URL pattern `yoursite.com/sitemap*.xml`. This prevents Cloudflare from serving a cached HTML version of the page.
- **Hostinger users:** In hPanel, navigate to **Hosting → Manage → Cache Manager** and clear the full cache. Then add an exclusion for `/sitemap.xml` so it is never cached as HTML.
- **All hosts:** Open your sitemap URL directly in a browser and view the page source. If you see standard HTML markup instead of XML tags beginning with `<?xml`, a caching or redirect layer is intercepting the file. Contact your host to exclude the sitemap path from caching rules.
- Ensure the sitemap URL does not redirect through a page that loads your site theme before serving the file.

## **🤖 How to Edit Your robots.txt File**

Your `robots.txt` file controls which parts of your site search engine crawlers can access. It must reference your sitemap correctly to support discovery.

**To edit robots.txt on WordPress:**

1. Log in to your WordPress admin panel.
2. Go to **Settings → Reading** and confirm **Search engine visibility** is **not** blocked.
3. Use the **Search Atlas Content Genius** WordPress plugin (see next section) or access your site files via FTP/hosting file manager.
4. Open or create `robots.txt` in your site root directory.
5. Add the following line at the bottom, replacing the URL with your actual sitemap address:  
   `Sitemap: https://yoursite.com/sitemap.xml`
6. Save the file and verify it is accessible at `https://yoursite.com/robots.txt` in your browser.

Avoid blocking `/wp-admin/` paths unnecessarily, and never block CSS or JS files that Google needs to render your pages.

## **🔌 How to Connect Content Genius to Your WordPress Blog**

Content Genius is the Search Atlas AI writing assistant. Connecting it to WordPress lets you publish optimised content directly from the platform.

1. In the left sidebar, click **Content** to expand the section.
2. Open **Content → Content Genius** (page title: "What are we writing today?") at `/content/seo-content-assistant`.
3. Inside the editor, locate the **WordPress Integration** or **Publish** option (top-right area of the editor toolbar).
4. Click **Connect WordPress** and enter your WordPress site URL.
5. Install the **Search Atlas** plugin on your WordPress site by uploading the plugin .zip provided by Search Atlas in **WordPress → Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin**, then activate it.
6. Copy the **API key** displayed in Search Atlas and paste it into the plugin settings inside WordPress under **Settings → Search Atlas**.
7. Return to Search Atlas and click **Verify Connection**. A success message confirms the integration is live.

Once connected, you can draft content inside the SEO Content Assistant and publish or save it as a draft directly to your WordPress blog without leaving Search Atlas.

## **📋 Understanding Google Instant Indexing and Plan Limits**

**Google Instant Indexing** (also called Indexing API or One-Click Indexing) is a premium feature that is **not included on all Search Atlas plans**. It allows you to request immediate indexing of a URL through the Google Indexing API rather than waiting for Googlebot to crawl it organically.

- Check your current plan by going to your **Avatar (top-right) → Billing → Plans & Top-ups** to see which features are included.
- If Instant Indexing is not shown in your dashboard, it means your current plan does not include it.
- To unlock this feature, upgrade your plan from the **Billing** section or speak with our team about the right plan for your needs.
- As an alternative, you can manually submit URLs for indexing through **Google Search Console → URL Inspection → Request Indexing** at no cost.

## **💬 Need More Help?**

If you need further assistance, open the chat widget in the bottom-right corner of the platform and type **human teammate** to be connected with a member of our team.