Advanced Website: Site configuration files

Upload several different file types to the root of your Guesty Website to serve important configuration files and override system-generated defaults. Use this feature to replace the default robots.txt and sitemap.xml files or to add files like ads.txt. 

Learn how to access the Guesty Websites sitemap.

Supported file types and behaviors

• Supported file types: .xml, .txt, and .json.
• Files upload to the root of your domain and are served live (for example, www.mydomain.com/ads.txt).
• Guesty Websites does not validate custom files, including potentially corrupt files.

Replace or add configuration files

Replace default files or add other files using either SEO settings or URL Redirects.

Using SEO settings

1. In the side panel, click Settings and select SEO.
2. In the "Custom sitemap, robots.txt, and other files" section, click Go here.
3. The "URL Redirect" screen opens with the File option selected.
4. In the "Source URL" field, enter the file path you want (for example, ads.txt). The live site will serve the file at www.yourdomain.com/ads.txt.
5. Click Upload file and select your file.
6. Confirm the Redirect type is 2xx OK. This preselected and not changeable.
7. Click Save.
8. Publish or republish the site to make the update live.

Using URL Redirects

1. In the side panel, click Settings and select URL Redirect.
2. Click Add a New Redirect.
3. Enter the file path you want (for example, ads.txt). The file will be live at www.yourdomain.com/ads.txt.
4. Select the File option.
5. Click Upload file and choose your file.
6. The Redirect type is 2xx OK. This is preselected and not changeable.
7. Click Save.
8. Publish or republish the site to add or update the file on your live site.

Revert to system-generated files

Switch back to using Guesty Websites’ automatically generated sitemap.xml or robots.txt files at any time.

1. In the side panel, click Seo & Settings, then click URL Redirect.
2. Click Delete for the file you want to remove.
3. Publish or republish the site to restore the default system-generated file.

How hreflang tags work with Guesty Websites

Guesty Advanced Website editor automatically generates and manages hreflang tags when you use the Multilingual feature. Manual setup or customization of hreflang is not supported.

• Guesty automatically adds the appropriate hreflang tags to the page source for all published languages.
• These tags appear in the site’s XML sitemap.
• Language versions of each page link to their corresponding alternatives via hreflang.

Verify hreflang implementation

1. Open any live page on your site.
2. View the page source in your browser.
3. Search for rel="alternate" or hreflang in the source code.

You can also confirm hreflang tags in your site’s XML sitemap, which lists language alternates for each URL.