WPCalibrate Sitemap Repair

Enterprise-grade WordPress XML Sitemap Diagnostic, Repair, Verification, and Monitoring Suite

Table of Contents

• About
• Features
  • 1. Intelligent Sitemap Provider Detection
  • 2. 14 Diagnostic Checks
  • 3. 4-Tier Automated Repair Engine
  • 4. Audit History & Verified Rollback
  • 5. Background Monitoring & Diff Alerts
  • 6. Seamless WordPress Dashboard Updates
• Documentation
  • System Requirements
  • Installation
  • Updating Directly from WordPress Dashboard
  • Diagnostic Scan & Repair Workflow
  • WooCommerce Integration
  • Developer Hooks & API Filters
  • Security Architecture
• Changelog
• Contributing & License

About

WPCalibrate Sitemap Repair is a dedicated diagnostic and technical repair tool engineered to inspect, fix, and monitor XML sitemaps in WordPress.

Instead of overriding or conflicting with your existing SEO configuration, WPCalibrate Sitemap Repair operates as an intelligent technical diagnostic layer. It acts seamlessly across WordPress Core sitemaps and major SEO plugins—including Yoast SEO, Rank Math, All in One SEO (AIOSEO), and SEOPress.

Whether your sitemaps are failing due to silent PHP notices contaminating XML declarations, incorrect rewrite rules returning 404s, robots.txt blocking search engine crawlers, or mixed HTTP/HTTPS canonical URLs following site migrations, WPCalibrate Sitemap Repair pinpoints root causes with surgical accuracy and provides one-click safe repairs with full database-backed rollback verification.

Features

1. Intelligent Sitemap Provider Detection

• Automatically identifies your canonical sitemap provider without manual configuration.
• Supports WordPress Core (/wp-sitemap.xml), Yoast SEO (/sitemap_index.xml), Rank Math (/sitemap_index.xml), AIOSEO (/sitemap.xml), and SEOPress (/sitemaps.xml).
• Built-in Conflict Detector warns immediately if competing SEO plugins are active simultaneously, preventing index corruption.

2. 14 Diagnostic Checks

WPCalibrate executes 14 modular, isolated diagnostic checks categorized across technical disciplines:

1. Provider Resolution: Identifies canonical sitemap generator and active configurations.
2. HTTP Status & Latency: Validates HTTP 200 response, measuring server latency and flagging slow responses.
3. Redirect Loops & Chains: Detects 301/302 redirects and unneeded canonical hops that waste search engine crawl budget.
4. XML Well-Formedness: Validates XML structure using secure DOM/XML parsers (LIBXML_NONET), catching unclosed tags and invalid syntax.
5. Pre-Declaration Output Detection: Identifies whitespace or BOM headers emitted before the <?xml declaration.
6. PHP Error & Warning Contamination: Detects silent PHP notices, warnings, or deprecated messages embedded inside XML responses.
7. HTML Response Masquerading: Flags 404/500 theme template pages mistakenly served with XML MIME types.
8. Sitemap Index Entry Verification: Verifies child sitemaps inside index documents.
9. Child Sitemap Sample Validation: Randomly samples and validates child sitemap URLs to verify deep index integrity.
10. HTTPS & Domain Consistency: Checks for mixed protocols or outdated domain names post-migration.
11. Search Engine Visibility Check: Inspects WordPress blog_public setting (Discourage search engines).
12. Rewrite Rules Health: Inspects rewrite rules structure and detects plain permalink limitations.
13. Robots.txt Directive Inspection: Checks robots.txt for disallow directives or missing Sitemap: declarations.
14. WooCommerce Product Visibility: Validates product catalog visibility settings when WooCommerce is active (without hard dependencies).

3. 4-Tier Automated Repair Engine

Repairs are strictly classified to prevent unintended modifications:

• Tier 1 (Safe): Non-destructive repairs (e.g. flushing object caches, repairing scheduled monitoring tasks).
• Tier 2 (Confirmation Required): Actions requiring explicit admin consent (e.g. flushing WordPress rewrite rules, injecting virtual robots.txt sitemap directives).
• Tier 3 (Manual Guidance): Provides clear step-by-step technical instructions for server-level or third-party settings (e.g. unchecking "Discourage search engines").
• Tier 4 (Unsupported / Third-Party): Clearly identifies external plugin ownership and directs admins to the appropriate settings screen.

4. Audit History & Verified Rollback

• Every repair logs an immutable record to a dedicated database table ({$wpdb->prefix}wpcalibrate_sitemap_repair_history).
• Tracks timestamps, user IDs, action names, parameters, pre-repair state snapshots, and verification results.
• Verified Rollback: Easily revert changes (e.g. virtual robots.txt directives) with cryptographic state verification.

5. Background Monitoring & Diff Alerts

• Configurable WP-Cron background monitor runs hourly, twice daily, or daily scans.
• Employs State Transition Diffing: Only triggers notifications when the health status actually degrades (e.g. Healthy ➔ Error).
• Prevents inbox flooding and admin notice fatigue.

6. Seamless WordPress Dashboard Updates

• Natively connects to this GitHub repository.
• Receives update notifications in wp-admin > Plugins and wp-admin > Dashboard > Updates as soon as a new release is published.
• Supports one-click updates with standard changelog modal viewing.

Documentation

System Requirements

Installation

Option A: Install via WordPress Admin Dashboard (Recommended)

1. Download the latest wpcalibrate-sitemap-repair-1.0.0.zip from Releases.
2. In your WordPress admin dashboard, go to Plugins > Add New Plugin.
3. Click Upload Plugin at the top.
4. Select the downloaded .zip file and click Install Now.
5. Click Activate Plugin.
6. Access the plugin via the WPCalibrate > Sitemap Repair menu in your WordPress sidebar.

Option B: Manual Installation via FTP / SSH

1. Download and extract wpcalibrate-sitemap-repair-1.0.0.zip.
2. Upload the wpcalibrate-sitemap-repair folder to your server's /wp-content/plugins/ directory.
3. In WordPress admin, navigate to Plugins > Installed Plugins and activate WPCalibrate Sitemap Repair.

Updating Directly from WordPress Dashboard

WPCalibrate Sitemap Repair includes a native GitHub update engine:

1. Whenever a new release or patch is published on GitHub, WordPress will automatically display an update notification:

   There is a new version of WPCalibrate Sitemap Repair available. View version details or update now.

2. Click Update Now to upgrade immediately directly inside WordPress.
3. You can click View version details to read the full release notes and changelog inside the WordPress modal.

Diagnostic Scan & Repair Workflow

1. Navigate to WPCalibrate > Sitemap Repair.
2. Click Run Diagnostic Scan on the Dashboard tab.
3. Review the status indicators across the 14 checks:
   • 🟢 Healthy: Passing all validation criteria.
   • 🟡 Warning: Non-critical issue or sub-optimal setting.
   • 🔴 Error / Critical: Urgent issue blocking sitemap rendering or crawler indexing.
   • 🔵 Needs Review: Manual verification required.
4. If actionable repairs are identified, click Execute Repair.
5. For Tier 2 actions, confirm the prompt to apply the fix.
6. The repair engine will automatically re-test the endpoint to verify the resolution.
7. Visit the History tab at any time to review past actions or trigger a verified rollback.

WooCommerce Integration

• WPCalibrate Sitemap Repair natively declares compatibility with High-Performance Order Storage (HPOS) (custom_order_tables).
• If WooCommerce is active, a dedicated product catalog visibility check analyzes product post types in your sitemap.
• Zero hard dependencies: if WooCommerce is deactivated or not installed, the plugin operates without any overhead or warnings.

Developer Hooks & API Filters

Capability Filter

Customize the required WordPress capability to access the plugin dashboard and execute repairs (defaults to manage_options):

add_filter( 'wpcalibrate_sitemap_repair_capability', function( $capability ) {
    return 'administrator';
} );

Diagnostic Results Filter

Hook into diagnostic results after a scan completes:

add_filter( 'wpcalibrate_sitemap_repair_scan_results', function( array $results ) {
    // Custom inspection or logging
    return $results;
} );

Monitoring Failure Action

Receive a notification or trigger webhooks when a scheduled scan detects an error:

add_action( 'wpcalibrate_sitemap_repair_status_transition', function( $old_status, $new_status, $results ) {
    if ( 'error' === $new_status ) {
        // Send Slack alert or webhook
    }
}, 10, 3 );

Security Architecture

• Strict SSRF Protection: Outbound diagnostic requests are strictly constrained to the site's own canonical host. Arbitrary external hosts, localhost loops, private subnet ranges (10.0.0.0/8, 172.16.0.0/12, 192.168.0.0/16), and cloud metadata IP endpoints (169.254.169.254) are systematically rejected.
• XXE Prevention: XML parsing disables external entity loading (LIBXML_NONET and LIBXML_NOENT restrictions) to eliminate XML External Entity injection vulnerabilities.
• Database Safety: Every query uses $wpdb->prepare(). Table column names, sort directions, and limit clauses are validated against strict internal allowlists.
• Sensitive Data Masking: Diagnostic logs and telemetry payloads automatically redact license keys, Bearer tokens, passwords, and authorization headers.
• CSRF Defense: Every AJAX endpoint and POST handler verifies fresh, single-purpose nonces and explicit capability checks.

Changelog

[1.0.1] - 2026-10-06

• Fixed: WordPress sidebar menu icon sizing issue. Applied standard 20px x 20px constraints with opacity transitions across all admin screens, responsive viewports, and folded sidebar states.
• Added: Native GitHub dashboard updater integration (GithubUpdater) allowing one-click updates directly from GitHub releases in wp-admin > Plugins.
• Added: Official GNU General Public License v2.0 (LICENSE.txt).
• Added: Comprehensive test suite for GitHub update checker with 43 automated passing tests.
• Updated: Full documentation and release package alignment.

[1.0.0] - 2026-10-06

• Initial Release: Complete production implementation of WPCalibrate Sitemap Repair.
• Engine: 14 modular diagnostic checks with orchestrator and scan locking.
• Providers: WordPress Core, Yoast SEO, Rank Math, AIOSEO, SEOPress, and generic fallback.
• Repairs: 4-tier repair engine with audit trail and verified rollback.
• Monitoring: Scheduled background WP-Cron monitoring with state transition diff alerts.
• Compatibility: WordPress 6.0 - 7.1.2+, PHP 8.2 - 8.3+, WooCommerce HPOS declared.

Contributing & License

Contributions, issues, and feature requests are welcome! Feel free to check the issues page.

Distributed under the GNU General Public License v2.0 or later. See LICENSE.txt for more information.

Copyright (c) 2026 WPCalibrate. All rights reserved.