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Google Search Console is rejecting my sitemap. My sitemap (as produced by RankMath) is https://thecollegeapplication.com/sitemap_index.xml. Google is issuing an error saying “Your Sitemap appears to be an HTML page. Please use a supported sitemap format instead.”
As a result, many of my valid pages are no longer indexed, and Google Search Console is classifying them as “Soft 404” yet the pages are very accessible and appear to function as usual.
I’ve contacted my hosting, and they claim everything checks out. No server-side issues and no SSL settings issues.
Can you help me?
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Hello,
Thank you for contacting Rank Math support, and sorry for any inconvenience that might have been caused due to that.
The
wwwvariation of your sitemap is currently returning an “Unauthorized Access” error page as you can see in my screenshot below:You may need to check with your hosting provider to whitelist your sitemap pages in their firewall services. Kindly contact them.
After doing so, please ensure that all 4 variations of your sitemap page are redirecting to a final variation:
Please follow this guide and redirect to a final variation:
https://rankmath.com/kb/couldnt-fetch-error-google-search-console/#num-5-4-redirect-all-three-other-versions-to-your-preferred-variationOnce done, clear your website cache and try submitting your sitemap to your Google Search Console again. See if this resolves the issue.
We are looking forward to hearing an update from you. Thank you.
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