Sitemap not indexed

#820259
  • Resolved Will Calver

    1 year, 5 months ago

    Rank Math free

    Hi there,

    I have a question regarding the sitemap.xml file and whether it should be indexed on google. It seems a common theme with our sites that the sitemap.xml is set to no-index when I’ve read around and apparently, it shouldn’t be set to this. I’m unsure why it is set like this on every site we have Rankmath installed on. Could you let us know why this is the case and what we can do to fix it?

    Sitemap in question:
    https://www.theshopworks.com/sitemap_index.xml

    Error in search console saying: “no-index detected in X-Robots-Tag
    https://app.box.com/s/573xh8xxxgjemyrks2uzummkfdbirn9r

    Please let me know what is the best process here and how we can get our sitemap back into search results across all websites.

    Thanks,
    Will

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

    1 year, 5 months ago

    Hello Will,

    Thank you for reaching out about the issue with your sitemap.xml file not being indexed on Google.

    The common reason why your sitemap.xml file is set to no-index is that the pages or posts are set as "Noindex" in the Robots Meta tag settings. This setting excludes them from the sitemap generated by Rank Math, resulting in a 404 error.

    To fix this issue, you need to ensure that your posts and pages are set to "Index" in the Robots Meta tag. You can check and change this setting by navigating to Rank Math SEO → Advanced tab in the post editing screen. Here, make sure the Robots Meta tag is set to "Index" as shown in the screenshot below:

    index in advanced tab

    After updating the settings to "Index," remember to save the changes by clicking the Update or Publish button.

    If after making these changes, the problem persists, you can also check for any unintended rules in the robots.txt file or conflicts with plugins. Additionally, you can exclude the sitemap files from caching in your caching plugin to ensure they reflect the latest posts and URLs of your website.

    I hope this helps resolve the issue with your sitemap not being indexed on Google. If you have any further questions or need assistance, please feel free to reach out to our support team for further guidance.

    Best regards.

    Sources:
    Why the Sitemap_Index.xml is Throwing a 404 Error » Rank Math
    Rank Math Sitemap Issues and Their Fixes » Rank Math
    Why Isn’t My URL Included in the Sitemap? » Rank Math

    Rakibuzzaman Siam

    1 year, 5 months ago

    Hello,

    Thank you for contacting us and bringing your concern to our attention.

    Please note that by default, sitemaps are set to Noindex as they are meant to be crawled and not to be displayed on search results pages and it is absolutely fine.

    You should only submit your sitemap to the sitemap section of your GSC account and shouldn’t use the URL inspection tool for the sitemap URLs.
    https://rankmath.com/kb/submit-sitemap-to-google/

    Hope that helps and please don’t hesitate to let us know if you have any other questions.

    Thank you.

    RankBot

    1 year, 4 months ago

    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.

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

The ticket ‘Sitemap not indexed’ is closed to new replies.