Sitemap could not be read

#1099802
  • Agustin Angel Astorga

    2 weeks, 1 day ago

    Rank Math free

    I saw in the sitemap section of Google Search console an error in reading the sitemap saying:

    [Sitemap could not be read
    General HTTP error
    1 instance
    We encountered an error while trying to access your sitemap. Please ensure that your sitemap is present at the specified address and is not blocked to Google. See our help center for more debugging help.
    Examples
    HTTP Error:
    404]

    I also saw the same issue with Bing Webmasters.

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)
  • RankBot

    2 weeks, 1 day ago

    Hello,

    We apologize for the issue you are facing with your sitemap not being read. The "Sitemap could not be read" error can occur for several reasons. Here are some steps you can take to troubleshoot and resolve this issue:

    1. Check Sitemap URL

    Ensure that your sitemap is correctly located at the specified URL. You can check this by entering your sitemap URL directly in a browser. It should return a valid XML sitemap.

    2. Flush Permalinks

    If you are encountering a 404 error, try flushing your permalinks. You can do this by going to Settings → Permalinks in your WordPress dashboard and clicking Save Changes without making any changes. This often resolves access issues.

    3. Validate Your Sitemap

    Use a sitemap validation tool to check if your sitemap is correctly configured. You can use the Validate XML Sitemap tool for this purpose.

    4. Ensure Sitemap is Not Blocked

    Make sure that your sitemap is not blocked by your robots.txt file or any security settings on your server. You can check your robots.txt file by visiting `https://rankmath.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Couldnt-fetch-error-in-Google-Search-Console-1.png and ensuring there are no disallow rules for the sitemap.

    5. Check Server Response

    You can also check the HTTP status code of your sitemap using tools like httpstatus.io. A status code of 200 indicates that the sitemap is accessible.

    6. Correct Sitemap Format

    Ensure that your sitemap file is using the correct XML format. The header should look like this:

    If there are any errors in the format, it may cause issues with reading the sitemap.

    7. Resubmit Your Sitemap

    After making any necessary changes, resubmit your sitemap in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.

    If you continue to experience issues after following these steps, please reply to this ticket with your site URL so we can assist you further. Thank you for raising this concern, and we hope these steps help resolve the issue!

    Sources:
    Rank Math Sitemap Issues and Their Fixes » Rank Math

    This is an automated reply from Rank Math Support Bot. Your ticket has been assigned to a human agent and we will get back to you shortly.

    Princess

    2 weeks, 1 day ago

    Hello,

    Thank you for contacting us. We apologize for any inconvenience that may have been caused.

    Please try to follow the steps below and see if that works for you.

    1. Flush the Sitemap cache by following this video screencast: https://i.rankmath.com/pipRDp

    2. Exclude the Sitemap files of the Rank Math plugin in your caching plugin. The cache could be via a plugin or from the server. For plugins or Cloudflare, please follow this article:
    https://rankmath.com/kb/exclude-sitemaps-from-caching/

    3. If the above steps don’t seem to work, kindly apply the following filter to your site.

    add_filter( 'rank_math/sitemap/enable_caching', '__return_false');

    Here’s how you can add a filter/hook to your WordPress site:
    https://rankmath.com/kb/wordpress-hooks-actions-filters/

    Once done, clear your website cache, remove all the submitted sitemaps, and resubmit only the index sitemap in the Search Console.

    Let us know how it goes. Looking forward to helping you.

    Thank you.

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)

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