[Steve Christian]

Hi there,

I use Yoast SEO, which automatically generates an xml sitemap for search engines. However, I’ve been having a problem with a missing homepage within the sitemap. The homepage disappears when Connections is activated and may (or may not) having something to do with the trailing slash on the domain name; and canonicals. BACKGROUND: I’ve moved from http to https in the past few weeks and before my domain had no trailing slash (forced with a since gone feature within Yoast SEO) and now since moving to https I’ve decided to to use the server provider default to include the trailing slash. However, if Connections is activated the homepage does not appear within the sitemap and so not submitted to search engines. If you need access let me know, I can create a staging server for you to access. I’ve also attached the support from Yoast below:

***** YOAST SUPPORT *****

We removed the custom canonical from the homepage and disabled almost all plugins. We left Yoast SEO Premium (network), WordPress MU Domain Mapping (network), and Yoast SEO: Local (site only). We disabled the sitemaps and checked that the sitemap did not work to ensure cache is cleared. We enabled the sitemaps and the homepage URL appears as expected and includes the trailing slash. The canonical for the homepage also includes the trailing slash. We slowly added the plugins you had activated on this site only and then moved to the network activated plugins. When enabling the Connections plugin, the homepage is removed from the sitemap and the trailing slash is removed.

Please reach out to the developer of the Connections plugin to find out why the plugin is removing the trailing slash.

---

Thanks
Steve

[Steven Zahm]

@ Steve

Well, now that is really odd because Connections has absolutely zero code in regards to the page set as the site’s home page. The only time I suppose there could possible be an effect is if you have the Directory Home Page to to the same page of the site’s home page. Even then, the only effect should be when following any of the directory related permalinks and would not affect the base permalink at all. If it did, I would expect that would generally break the site.

I guess the path forward would be to login and repeat the same test they did but with one difference. See if it happens with just Yoast and Connections active. Perhaps there could be some weird issue when it is only a combination of plugins being used.

[Steve Christian]

Thanks for the quick response. I’ve carried out some further testing as you suggested and the homepage continues to disappear from the sitemap when Connections is activated. I deactivated all plugins except for: Connections; cMap template; Yoast SEO Premium; and WordPress MU Domain Mapping. I’m running a multisite setup and I tried with both Connections network activated and locally activated. I also made sure that that the directory page was not pointing to the homepage. Any thoughts? Thanks, Steve.

[Steven Zahm]

@ Steve

re: I tried with both Connections network activated and locally activated.

You should not network activate Connections. ONly activate it on the subsites using the plugin. But that should have no effect of the site’s URL has a trailing slash or removing it from Yoast.

re: Any thoughts?

There’s only two areas in Connections where there is code that even remotely affects a site’s permalinks. Connections adds it own URL rewrite rules so the directory links will work. But that only adds new rules, it does not overwrite any core WP rules. Connections does filter the core WP get_permalink() function when viewing it’s directory pages so the function will return URLs to work with the permalink rules it adds.

If you can give me a login, I will edit the code in Connections so the filters for these two items are not run so we can see if one of these are somehow causing the issue. At this point I do not see how, but hey, I’ve seen weirder things. The edit will simply be commenting out a few lines which add the filters that in turn run the code. Without the filters, the code is never run. It’ll break Connections as none of the links will work.

[Steve Christian]

This reply has been marked as private.

[Steven Zahm]

@ Steve

Sooo… I found something interesting things…

With Connections disabled. On the WordPress Permalink Settings admin page, if I would select any of the default options ( Day and name, month and name, Post name ) the site map would only contain 2 URLs. The home page and one other one. Now, if I remove the trailing slash on any of the default options by using the Custom Structure, then all 62 URLs would be in the sitemap.

Bug in Yoast SEO? Unknown, but to my eyes it seems to be a bug and a pretty significant one.

Also, the sitemap did not seem to respect the selected permalink structure. Meaning the sitemap completely ignored the day or month (as examples) in the permalink structure and created the sitemap as if only using the post name permalink structure option. Bug or feature I couldn’t say. Seems like a bug though.

Now, back on issue…

With Connections enabled. I was able to get the homepage to show up in the sitemap. It was not being included because I need to filter the link and I added a trailing slash based on whether or not the user set the site’s permalink structure to have a trailing slash or not. Due to the first bug(?) in Yoast I mentioned the home page did not get a trailing slash and so was not included in the sitemap. I change the logic in Connections to always add a trailing slash to the homepage regardless if that was what the user set in the permalink settings or not and now it shows up in the sitemap. I do think this might be a bug in Connections because it appears the home page should always end in a trailing slash. Or it could not be a bug because the permalink structure setting should be honored. That’s difficult to know. I’d have to research further.

Anyway, I left the code in place which always adds a trailing slash to the home page for you to verify that it works fine now. I’ll very likely include this tweak in the next update to since it is a minor change which should have no negative effects.

I would encourage you to reach out to Yoast and inquire if the above to items I found are bugs or features.

I hope that helps!

[Steve Christian]

Thanks for this. Checked it on staging and it’s working as you said. I’ve reached out to Yoast and I’ll keep you updated with their responses. Thanks, Steve.

[Steve Christian]

As promised the response from Yoast. They seem to be saying there isn’t a problem or if there was we needed to refresh the sitemap by disabling and then enabling it again, which should have forced the permalink structures through. What do you think? The following is in response to your previous response to me. I copied to them.

** YOAST SUPPORT RESPONSE **
The Connections developer responded there might be 2 possible bugs. We will address them accordingly:
1. By removing the trailing slash on any of the default options by using the Custom Structure, the 62 URLs would be in the sitemap. Removing the trailing slash at the end shouldn’t make any difference for the sitemap structure or the sitemap generated. See point 2 for more information.
2. The sitemap did not seem to respect the selected permalink structure. Our plugin should pick up the Custom Structure and update the sitemap accordingly as soon as the permalink structure is saved. If it does not, you can try to force the sitemap to update by disabling the sitemap and re-enabling it afterward via “SEO -> XML Sitemaps”. If the issue still persists, please run a conflict check.

[Steven Zahm]

@ Steve

re: Removing the trailing slash at the end shouldn’t make any difference for the sitemap structure or the sitemap generated.

Ok, what they say here seems to confirm there is a bug or another issue. The only way the 62 URL were in your page sitemap is if I removed the trailing slash. With the trailing slash there were only two pages. Now, this was with Connections both activated and deactivated so it was not Connections related like the homepage dropping out of the sitemaps.

re: point 2

The page site map always generated with the post name permalink structure on your site, no matter which option I choose. So, it seems like this is indeed a bug too. I, of course, was refreshing the sitemap cache by toggling the on/off.

If they have not logged into your site and looked, you might want to ask them too because there response indicates what I saw were bugs. Perhaps I was doing something wrong or perhaps there is another plugin conflict. So, maybe take a little time to replicate my findings before saying definitively if this is an real issue or not.

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