Hello,
We apologize for the issue you are facing with your sitemap not being read by Google. Here are a few steps you can take to troubleshoot this problem:
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Check the Sitemap URL: Ensure that the sitemap URL you provided is correct and accessible. You can do this by visiting https://rankmath.com/kb/news-sitemap/ in your browser.
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Flush Permalinks: Sometimes, flushing permalinks can resolve issues with sitemaps. To do this, go to your WordPress dashboard, navigate to Settings > Permalinks, and simply click Save Changes without making any changes. This action refreshes the permalink structure.
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Check for Errors: If you are receiving an error message like "Your file appears to be an HTML page," ensure that you are submitting the correct XML sitemap to Google. The correct URL should be the one ending in sitemap_index.xml.
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Review robots.txt: Make sure that your robots.txt file is not blocking access to your sitemap. You can check this by going to Rank Math SEO > General Settings > robots.txt and ensuring there are no rules preventing Google from accessing your sitemap.
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Check for Plugin Conflicts: Sometimes, other plugins can conflict with Rank Math. You can use the Health Check plugin to identify any potential conflicts.
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Sitemap Status Code: Use a tool like httpstatus.io to check the status code of your sitemap. It should return a status code of 200. If it does not, there may be an issue with your server configuration.
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Clear Cache: If you are using any caching plugins, make sure to clear your website cache after making changes.
If you have tried these steps and the issue persists, please reply to this ticket, and a human agent from the Rank Math Support team will assist you further.
Thank you for raising this concern!
Sources:
Rank Math Sitemap Issues and Their Fixes » Rank Math
Hello,
Thank you for contacting us and sorry for any inconvenience that might have been caused due to that.
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/
Once done, clear your website cache, remove all the submitted sitemap, and resubmit only the /sitemap_index.xml in the Search Console.
However, please note that the ‘Discovered Pages’ on the Google Search Console only shows the number of pages that were discovered using the sitemap, and since the sitemap is not the only tool Google uses to discover pages, the number of ‘Discovered Pages’ might differ from your number of pages on your sitemap.
If your pages are getting indexed then you don’t have to worry.
Hope that helps and please don’t hesitate to let us know if you have any other questions.
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.
