Hello,
Thank you for contacting the support, and sorry for any inconvenience that might have been caused due to that.
Your sitemap indeed has an issue when you load it in the browser.
Can you please follow these steps?
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/ when you load it in the browser.
3. Remove all your sitemap/s from Google Search Console and submit only the primary sitemap (sitemap_index.xml). See if this helps you with your current issue.
Let me know how it goes. We are looking forward to helping you.
Hi Jeremy,
Thanks for quick reply.
(1) I have followed step no 1
(2) Link in step number 2 doesn’t open so please let me know how to exclude rankmath sitemap files from caching plug in. I have Litespeed Cache installed
(3) Only 1 sitempap is submitted in google console and that is http://www.smgardener.com/sitemap_index.xml which is showing “HTML” error we are talking about….Should I delete it?
Hello,
Apologize for the issue, please refer to this link for the step 2 guide: https://rankmath.com/kb/exclude-sitemaps-from-caching/
Yes, you can remove that to resubmit your sitemap again and Google should recrawl it assuming you have fixed the sitemap.
If there is still an issue with your sitemap after following the step 2 guide, we might need to take a closer look at the settings. Please edit the first post on this ticket and include your WordPress login in the designated Sensitive Data section.
Please do take a complete backup of your website before sharing the information with us.
It is completely secure and only our support staff has access to that section. If you want, you can use the below plugin to generate a temporary login URL to your website and share that with us instead:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/temporary-login-without-password/
You can use the above plugin in conjunction with the WP Security Audit Log to monitor what changes our staff might make on your website (if any):
https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-security-audit-log/
We really look forward to helping you.
Hello,
I have updated the sensitive data as requested. Can you please check further?
Thank you.
Hello,
I checked the sitemap page and it seems to be working now when loaded in the browser. I also submitted it in a sitemap validator and its loading without any errors as well:
https://i.rankmath.com/AbMxlV
https://i.rankmath.com/sN0r2m
Please proceed with removing all your sitemap/s from Google Search Console and submit resubmit the sitemap_index.xml.
Let us know how that goes. Looking forward to helping you.
Hi Jeremy
Thanks for checking it out. I have deleted previously submitted sitemap and added new one now which is http://www.smgardener.com/sitemap_index.xml
Although it is still showing error in “Post” category bu I think it’s because it had been read on October 1……I shall come back to you once google reads the sitemap again
Thanks
Hello,
I checked your sitemap and it is throwing an error:
And I was also able to check that both the WWW and non-WWW versions are returning a 200 status. The non-WWW version is working fine.
Please ensure that only 1 version of the sitemap is working (200 status), and the rest are redirecting to it. You can also use this tool to check. Please follow the steps in this link:
https://rankmath.com/kb/couldnt-fetch-error-google-search-console/#5-check-for-the-correct-version-of-the-sitemap and redirect the WWW version to the non-WWW version.
Once done, resubmit the non-WWW version of your sitemap_index.xml in the Search Console.
Let us know how that goes. Looking forward to helping you.
Thanks.
Hi Jaideep
Thanks for your reply
I just tried to validate my sitemap URL and it is showing no error also in Google search console no error is being displayed now. Below is the link for validation
Please do let me know if I still need to do something OR are there still multiple sitemaps for my website/blog.
https://www.xml-sitemaps.com/validate-xml-sitemap.html?op=validate-xml-sitemap&go=1&sitemapurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.smgardener.com%2Fsitemap_index.xml&submit=Validate+Sitemap
Hello,
I checked the sitemap, it is validated without any errors.
However, the www versions are not redirected to the non-www version, it is returning a blank page.
Please follow the instructions shared by my colleague to redirect to one final variation.
If you are not sure, you can get in touch with your web host.
If you have already redirected to the final variation, clear the cache and add sitemap_index.xml in the Search Console.
I hope this helps. Looking forward to helping you.
Hello,
Since we did not hear back from you for 15 days, we are assuming that you found the solution. We are closing this support ticket.
If you still need assistance or any other help, please feel free to open a new support ticket, and we will be more than happy to assist.
Thank you.
