Search Engines and Indexing

A new page is only found once a search engine knows it exists. Tirenoa can tell them directly: it submits changed pages on its own, hands the sitemap to Google and Bing, and publishes files that crawlers and AI assistants read first.

Everything described here is under Tirenoa › Options › SEO. Nothing is sent to a search engine unless you switch it on there.

In this article: IndexNow · Google Search Console · Bing Webmaster Tools · The sitemap · llms.txt and robots.txt · Verification and structured data · Privacy · Related

IndexNow

IndexNow is a protocol supported by Bing, Yandex, Seznam, Naver and others. One submission reaches all of them, and no account is needed: the site proves that it owns the domain with a key file the theme serves automatically.

  1. Scroll to Indexing at the end of the SEO section.
  2. Tick Enabled in the row IndexNow.
  3. Leave Submit changes automatically ticked. Every published, updated or removed page is then submitted about a minute after it is saved, and saves made close together go out as one message.
  4. Choose Save indexing settings.
  5. Choose Submit every page now once, so the engines learn about everything that already exists.

The row Key file shows the address of the key file. Password-protected pages are never submitted. With Tiaro Multilingual, the addresses of a page in languages without their own translation are submitted too.

Note: Right after switching IndexNow on, the first submission can be refused because the engines have not fetched the key file yet. Wait a few minutes and submit again; the Log at the end of the panel shows the answer.

Google Search Console

Google has no service that accepts single pages, so the theme submits the sitemap and shows what Google reports about it. This needs a service account, which is a technical user that Google gives a key file.

  1. In Google Cloud, create a service account with the Google Search Console API enabled and download its JSON key.
  2. Paste the whole file into Service account key and save. The key is stored encrypted.
  3. In Search Console, under Settings › Users and permissions, add the address of the stored account as a user of your property.
  4. Leave Property empty for a domain property, or enter it as Search Console shows it.
  5. Choose Submit sitemap to Google.

The table that appears lists each sitemap with Submitted, Last read by Google, Pages, Errors / warnings and State. To remove a stored key, enter a single hyphen in the field and save.

Bing Webmaster Tools

Bing already learns about every page through IndexNow. The optional API key, from Bing Webmaster Tools › Settings › API access, lets the sitemap be submitted there directly with Submit sitemap to Bing.

The sitemap

The sitemap is the one WordPress builds itself, at /wp-sitemap.xml. The theme adds the date of the last change to every entry and lists the sitemap in robots.txt.

Enable HTML Sitemap creates a page for people as well: a page called Sitemap that lists every public content type. Its address ending is set with Sitemap Page Slug. The page is created once; changing the slug later does not rename it.

Note: WordPress only publishes a sitemap while Settings › Reading › Discourage search engines from indexing this site is unticked.

llms.txt and robots.txt

Option What it does
Generate llms.txt Publishes /llms.txt: the name of the site, a description, the sitemap and a list of your pages and posts by content type. AI assistants read it to understand a site.
Site Description for AI The description in that file. Empty: the tagline of the site is used.
Robots.txt Content Replaces the robots.txt WordPress generates. Leave it empty unless you need rules of your own, and add the line for the sitemap yourself if you fill it in.

Verification and structured data

Option What it does
Google Search Console Verification / Bing Webmaster Tools Verification Paste the content value of the verification tag. The tag is printed on the front page.
Enable Rich Snippets Switches structured data on for the whole site. The switches below it control single kinds: title, author, last update date, FAQ and Organization.
Business Address / Phone / Email Used for the Organization data only. Leave empty to omit.
Open Graph Meta Tags The tags social networks and messengers read when a page is shared. Default Sharing Image is used when a page has neither its own sharing image nor a featured image.

A single page can describe a service: under Page Options › SEO, set This Page Describes a Service to Yes. The same tab holds the SEO Title and the Meta Description of the page; without a description, the first words of the content are used.

Privacy

With IndexNow on, the site sends the addresses of public pages to api.indexnow.org. With a Google key stored, it asks Google for the state of the sitemap whenever the panel is opened. Bing is only contacted when you press its button. None of these requests contain data about visitors.