---
title: Guest review pages in the XML sitemap
description: If your site has a large review library, including each individual review page in your XML sitemap can cause heavy crawler traffic and slow database…
url: "https://homerunner.io/docs/should-individual-guest-review-pages-be-included-in-my-site-s-xml-sitemap/"
updated: "2026-10-26"
category: Theme and design
---

# Guest review pages in the XML sitemap

If your site has a large review library, including each individual review page in your XML sitemap can cause heavy crawler traffic and slow database queries.

**Why this happens.** Each sitemap request triggers database work, so thousands of review URLs add up. Because your reviews already appear on your property pages, the individual review pages are typically thin content with limited SEO value.

**Removing review pages from the sitemap in Rank Math.**

1. Go to **Rank Math SEO**.
2. Open **Sitemap Settings**.
3. Select **Post Types**.
4. Find **Reviews** and turn off **Include in Sitemap**.
5. If the HTML sitemap toggle is enabled, disable it as well.
6. Save your changes.

This removes the review sitemap from the sitemap index, so crawlers stop fetching thousands of review URLs. On one large site, this reduced the sitemap index from 23 sitemaps (16 of which were review pages) to 7. The change is reversible from the same screen.

**What this does not change.** Removing reviews from the sitemap does not affect whether the review pages themselves are indexable, and your reviews continue to appear on your property pages. If you also want the individual review pages removed from search results entirely, that is a separate noindex decision. You can configure it in Rank Math under **Titles & Meta** for the **Reviews** post type.

Still stuck? [Contact the HomeRunner team](https://homerunner.io/contact/) with your site address and what you tried, and we take it from there.