This is not a new issue, I have looked into it. The problem here is not whether the WordPress development team knows about it or not, but that they have neglected it since WordPress 5.5. This bug seriously affects SEO and being neglected for more than 5 years is unacceptable.
WordPress itself has no “Products” feature and does not generate these product-X.xml sitemaps by default. There are likely from the WooCommerce plugin (if you’re using the plugin), and that’s where you should seek help from.
This issue has been identified as a WordPress issue and not related to Woocommerce. You can see similar issues from the post sitemap but not the product sitemap. And it has been over 5 years and the issue is still not resolved.
Your 404s relate to WooCommerce sitemaps.
Unless you can show 404s relating to native WordPress sitemaps, it’s a WooCommerce issue (or at least their responsibility to get this fixed if their plugin’s sitemaps, in particular, are having these 404s).
So the big unknown is: are you seeing the 404s on native WordPress sitemap URLs?
The sitemap says “This XML sitemap is generated by WordPress to make your content more visible to search engines.” why are you blaming it on woocommerce?
First of all:
Please do not ask other normal users to remove spam. For reports of this kind, there is a report button on the right. The volunteer moderators will then take care of it.
Now to your question:
It would also be useful to know whether you are using an SEO plugin that generates sitemaps for you and, if so, which one? Or do you not use any SEO plugin for sitemaps and only use the SitemapXML function provided by WordPress? Only if the latter is the case would it be worth taking a closer look.
One possible solution for you could be to use an SEO plugin that generates the XML sitemap for you. I’m currently using Yoast SEO for this and haven’t had any problems with a project involving thousands of products.
Please note that the developers who take care of the WordPress core are volunteers, just like the moderators here in the forum. Most of them are users like you and me. Tasks are therefore looked at as soon as the opportunity arises. Please keep this in mind when communicating here and in Trac. Please also pay attention to your choice of words.
And perhaps it is also advantageous that you have revived the ticket in Trac. This will bring it back into the spotlight.
First there is no button for me to report spam comments. Second I want the cleanest experience and best speed so I limit the use of plugins, especially seo plugins.
The report button is quite clearly visible here:
View post on imgur.com
I can understand that you would prefer not to use much plugins. In this case, however, it would be the best solution for now, because you will not find or receive an ad hoc solution for a potential problem in the WordPress core here in this topic. Therefore, my recommendation would be to consider using a plugin. This would solve the problem for you immediately.
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This reply was modified 4 months ago by
threadi.
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This reply was modified 4 months ago by threadi.
it’s the “post” report button, not “comment” report. and i know i have to use an alternative seo plugin, but i don’t want to, i want to use the built in WordPress tool. since this bug has been around for so long and seriously affects seo i have to pursue it to the end.
I hope you will prioritize this issue and notify the WordPress code admins so they can include a fix in WordPress 6.8.3 or 6.9.
Your information in the Core Trac ticket was exactly the right approach. This has brought the issue back into focus and could be noticed at the next dev meetings or by a developer who currently has free resources for it. However, you will need to be patient in this regard.
