Getting started with CYBERMAPS

Install CYBERMAPS, review the suggested configuration, and see what it publishes for your site. Start on a test site while the plugin is in beta.

Requirements and installation

Use WordPress 7.1 or later and PHP 8.2 or later. PHP 8.3+ is recommended.

Open beta for bug reports. Plugin Directory is in review (stage 2). Install from GitHub until then.

Download open beta

Download the plugin ZIP from GitHub Releases. In WordPress, go to Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin, choose the ZIP, then install and activate CYBERMAPS.

The beta ends when CYBERMAPS is released on WordPress.org. The plugin remains free, with future updates moving to the normal WordPress.org update channel. Any transition steps will accompany that release announcement.

Configure your first publications

1. Choose one sitemap owner. Disable overlapping sitemap output in other plugins before letting CYBERMAPS take over its routes.
2. Open CYBERMAPS → Overview → Quick Setup and answer the three short steps.
3. Select Finish setup to apply the preset, then expand See settings applied for the receipt.
4. Fine-tune public content eligibility, schema, and AI Publishing in their workspaces.
5. Open Sitemap Status and AI Discovery Status. Test the public URLs and their headers.
6. Open Reports and save a content report. Review content, potential-orphan, and click-depth findings, make a useful improvement, and run another report to compare the findings.

Keep the editorial tools you use. If your theme already handles titles and schema, you may not need a full SEO suite. You can keep an existing sitemap owner and use CYBERMAPS for other features, or coordinate a switch to its sitemaps. Review overlapping schema settings as well.

How it works

Cybermaps adds one top-level administration area with seven primary tabs:

Page	What it controls
Overview	Site inventory, feature status, publication links, and operational shortcuts
XML Sitemaps	XML, News, RSS, media, external URL, Content Discovery Strategy, caching, redirect, robots-link, translation, IndexNow, WebSub, and Static File Engine settings
HTML Sitemap	Shortcode availability plus an interactive builder, generated shortcode, examples, and attribute reference
AI Publishing	The publication master switch, LLMS output, discovery manifests, feeds, chunks, actions, usage policy, custom AI instructions, and crawler/robots policy
Schema	Organization, LocalBusiness, or Person identity, contact and location details, social profiles, hours, contact points, and service catalogs
Reports	Content and local internal-link measurements, saved reports, focused action lists, report themes, agency branding, and AI Discovery Publication Reports
Advanced	Delivery and performance controls, managed or self-managed Cloudflare OAuth plus a one-time-token fallback, headless and media-CDN URL rewriting, private REST secret, static cleanup, uninstall behavior, and configuration exchange

Debugging is a separate submenu, with expiring diagnostic logging, redacted support bundles, runtime and optimization status, and public delivery checks.

Quick Setup

Quick Setup is an optional three-step survey launched from Overview:

1. Your website: choose the closest website type for a matching content profile and sitemap preset.
2. Your priorities: choose basic AI discovery and either anonymized crawler activity or lightweight delivery.
3. About you: enter a public identity type, name, short introduction, and optional logo or photo.

Finish setup applies the site-wide preset and displays a summary with an expandable settings receipt. Viewing or leaving the survey changes nothing. Activity insights enable anonymized 30-day logging with dynamic delivery; lightweight delivery disables logging and selects full static publication. Multisite always keeps dynamic delivery.

Custom content-group adjustments, crawler policies, AI usage permissions, detailed AI features, identity contacts and catalogs, credentials, route slugs, and reports remain in their normal workspaces. Turning AI discovery off also disables WebSub because it depends on the Discovery Hub. The server validates and sanitizes the preset and checks the content, environment, and destination fingerprints before applying it. There is no saved completion state or recurring setup notice.

The Crawler & Robots Policy workspace is shown directly within AI Publishing. Its category rows provide bulk controls for every crawler currently listed in that group; individual rows stay collapsed until an administrator chooses Customize.

Cybermaps also provides three dedicated diagnostic pages:

• Sitemap Status lists the advertised sitemap inventory, estimated URL coverage, explicit item exclusions, configured delivery mode, and direct links for public inspection.
• AI Discovery Status checks each registered fixed-path publication’s enablement, expected format, public HTTP status, media type, parseability, and delivery path. It distinguishes Configured settings, Advertised generated metadata, and Publicly verified live HTTP results.
• Discovery Analytics combines endpoint activity, crawler-like content visits, unidentified request patterns, the detailed Request Log, retention, CSV export, and clear-history controls.

The standard WordPress Dashboard includes a five-row CYBERMAPS: Recent PHP-Observed Requests widget with a direct link to the full analytics view.

AI Discovery Status and the AI Discovery Publication Report make bounded GET requests to enabled publications at the configured public base URL. Requests send the expected Accept media type, X-Cybermaps-Diagnostic: 1, and a Cybermaps health-check User-Agent. The API Catalog receives an additional HEAD request so its required Link header can be checked. Results are validated locally and cached briefly. A separately hosted Frontend Base URL therefore receives these requests when an administrator configures one; no probe data is sent to Cybermaps.

On multisite, Network Admin adds a Cybermaps page with an optional centralized /sitemap-network.xml index. It lists the Cybermaps sitemap for each public site where the plugin is active.

For each publishable public post type, the classic editor and block editor expose Cybermaps controls for sitemap exclusion, AI exclusion, intent, sitemap priority, and change frequency. WordPress attachment rows are excluded from the shared publication-type inventory. A translation panel is available when translation integrations are enabled.