Generate sitemaps containing the non-www versions of the URLs

[Guest Biolo Gic]

I usually prefer the non-www URL for my website (http://example.com, not http://www.example.com). While submitting the site to Google one needs to set a preferred domain by choosing either the www or the non-www version of URL. Then, during submitting the sitemap, only the sitemap containing the preferred version of URL should be submitted to Google search console.

I have a website run by MediaWiki software. It uses a PHP script (named generateSitemap.php, it is bundled with the MediaWiki installation package) to create the sitemaps. One can set cron jobs to automate the process of updating sitemap at regular intervals.

The problem is my sitemaps are being generated containing the www version of the webpages.

How should I instruct the programs to generate sitemaps without www in the URLs? Please help.

[Jack Phoenix]

According to the MediaWiki.org manual page for generateSitemaps.php, the script has an option named --urlpath  (which you should apparently use almost always with the --server option), which allows setting an absolute URL and seems to have been specifically implemented to support Google's requirements for sitemaps.

Edited December 27, 2018 by Jack Phoenix
typofix (see edit history)