Hello,
I’m sorry to hear about the issue you are facing with unnecessary pages in your sitemap. If you have deleted pages that are still showing up in your sitemap, you can follow these steps to resolve the issue:
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Clear Cache: First, clear the cache on your website to ensure that you are viewing the most up-to-date version of your sitemap.
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Check for Plugin Conflicts: Sometimes, plugin conflicts can cause deleted pages to still appear in the sitemap. You can use the Health Check plugin to identify and resolve any conflicts.
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Exclude Deleted Pages: If you have a large number of deleted pages showing up in the sitemap, you can exclude them by setting them to "noindex." You can do this by accessing WP Dashboard → Rank Math SEO → Titles & Meta → Global Meta → Noindex Empty Category and Tag Archives. This will prevent these pages from being included in the sitemap.
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Wait for Google to Recrawl: After making these changes, it’s important to wait for Google to recrawl your sitemap. Once Google crawls your site again, it should reflect the updated sitemap without the deleted pages.
If you continue to face issues or need further assistance, please feel free to reach out to our support team for personalized help. You can contact them here.
I hope this helps in resolving the issue with the unnecessary pages in your sitemap. If you have any more questions or need additional assistance, please let us know. We’re here to help!
Sources:
Why Are My Translated Pages Not in the Sitemap? » Rank Math
Rank Math Sitemap Issues and Their Fixes » Rank Math
How to Fix the Submitted URL Seems to Be a “Soft 404” Error » Rank Math
Remove Blank Lines From Sitemaps » Rank Math
Hello,
Thank you for contacting us and sorry for any inconvenience that might have been caused due to that.
Could you 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 filter/hook to your WordPress site:
https://rankmath.com/kb/wordpress-hooks-actions-filters/
Let us know how it goes. Looking forward to helping you.
Thank you.
Hello,
I have updated the sensitive data as requested. Can you please check further?
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.
