Hello,
Thanks for contacting us, and sorry for any inconvenience that might have been caused due to that.
I checked your sitemap and it seems to be working fine.
However, the Discovered URLs 0 that you see in Google Search Console just means that the URLs in the sitemap were already found by Googlebot by other means, instead of via the sitemap. For example, Googlebot may have found the URLs from internal links or possibly from links on another site.
Hope that helps, and please do not hesitate to let us know if you need our assistance with anything else.
Thank you.
Hi,
I just registered to reply to this thread (I use RankMath as well).
You wrote: “However, the Discovered URLs 0 that you see in Google Search Console just means that the URLs in the sitemap were already found by Googlebot by other means, instead of via the sitemap. For example, Googlebot may have found the URLs from internal links or possibly from links on another site.”
I don´t think this is true and you should look further into the issue, I am assuming that this isn´t a rank math issue however it might be a good idea to look into it, to give a correct answer on future inquiries like these.
This bug (or maybe shadowban?!) has something to do with Googles recent Spam Update. Before this update the sitemap always showed the discovered URLs and refreshed them in an instant after submission. Since the update I have discovered URLs: 0, since October.
If I inspect my URLS in GSC, there is “Sitemap: N/A” displayed. This too, was not common before the Spam Update.
It´s like Google refuses to read and crawl the sitemaps of certain websites. I tried to use different sitemap formats but to no avail.
This wasn´t common before the update so it is highly unlikely that this means that Googlebot found the URLs somewhere else.
This also correlates with observing how my keywords behave in Ahrefs. I got 99% of my keywords delisted after the Spam Update, I got a few back picked up by Ahrefs. This, in my opinion, is a direct result of Google not wanting to crawl, read and pick up the Sitemap of certain sites which also is the reason why Ahrefs barely picked up any keywords or articles of all the ones which were read and ranked perfectly fine before the update.
Hope this helps!
Hello @cassiejones,
I appreciate your research on this issue. But let me help you to get a clear idea on this one.
Google can discover your URLs even if you’re not using the XML sitemap for your site, since the sitemap is only a ‘backup’ crawling/discovery mechanism.
In simple words, Google doesn’t only use sitemaps to keep track of all the pages of a site, rather than there are several ways from where Google can find, crawl and index your site URLs.
https://support.google.com/webmasters/thread/18093304?hl=en&msgid=18094081
While you’re encountering N/A in sitemaps in URL inspection tool, that simply illustrates the scenario. As those URL(s) are not founded by Google using your sitemap, it’s pretty much logical to see Sitemaps: N/A for those URLs.
So, it’s better to look at the Coverage report for your site on GSC and focusing on other issues, since your site URLs are being indexed properly on Google.
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/7440203?hl=en
Here’s a guide for your reference:
https://rankmath.com/kb/zero-discovered-urls-through-sitemap/
As your site was affected by Google spam updates, you can follow the below guide on how you can recover your site from Google spam update:
https://rankmath.com/blog/google-algorithm-update-recovery/
Hope that clarifies you doubt.
Thank you.
Hi Sakib,
thank you for taking the time to reply.
While what you wrote does make sense, it does not explain why these things changed after the recent Spam Update.
Like I said, before the update the URL count was displayed/refreshed in an instant after submitting the sitemap, also while inspecting certain URLs, there was never a “Sitemap: N/A” notification to be found, ever, since 2020 when I did set up my website and submitted it to GSC.
This even affects URLs which were found in the sitemap previous to the update, so it doesn´t make sense to think that these only affect URLs which Google found somewhere else…
Why has this suddenly changed after the recent Spam Update? Don´t you think the timing is a little bit suspicious?
The affected URLs, namely all, were not newly submitted URLs and were all previously found through the sitemap…
What correlates as well with this issue is a step decline in indexed pages since the update in October when the “discovered URLs: 0” & sitemap: N/A notifications showed up.
I appreciate your response but I think you are still not on the right path regarding this issue, there is simply more to it, if you take a closer look.
Best Regards,
Cassie
Hello @cassiejones,
We really do appreciate your findings on this issue. But at the moment, there’s nothing from Google suggesting that or neither they announced such statement. Thus, we cannot confirm that.
For now, we can only rely on the statements that directly comes from Google.
Hope that helps, and please do not hesitate to let us know if you need our assistance with anything else.
Thank 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.
