Authors not appearing in sitemap unless a post is updated

#519
  • Resolved JM
    Rank Math free

    Hi.

    I just moved one of my sites from Yoast and am loving the plugin so far. But I’m having a couple of issues with sitemaps.

    1. Two of the sitemaps are showing errors in Google Search Console (https://allfreelancewriting.com/post_tag-sitemap1.xml and https://allfreelancewriting.com/author-sitemap.xml ). Google is showing a 404 error after sitemap submission, but I see them fine in my browser. I’ve tried resetting the sitemap settings and flushing permalinks since I saw you recommend that elsewhere when this happens. Nothing seems to help even after resubmitting to Google. Is there something I’m missing in the settings that could be blocking Google specifically from seeing those two sitemaps?

    2. My bigger concern is specifically with the author archives sitemap. My site has dozens of authors. And at first your sitemap only showed me (the admin). I found the only way I could get other authors to show up in the sitemap is to manually open one of their posts and re-save it in the admin area. This is rather tedious if you have more than a few authors. Is there a way to force the plugin to add all authors from all posts to the sitemap?

    Thanks in advance for your help.

    • This topic was modified 5 years ago by JM. Reason: Added RM login details
Viewing 13 replies - 1 through 13 (of 13 total)
  • Hi Jen,

    Thank you for getting in touch with us and sorry for the trouble this must have caused.

    1. Are you submitting the full URL or just the relative path? Please alternate between the two and see if it solves the issue. We have seen it work with many users especially on the new version of GSC. If the DNS of the domain was recently updated, please wait 48 hours before attempting to add any sitemaps to Google.

    2. If you have enabled author archives and made them indexable in WP > Rank Math > Titles & Meta > Authors, you shouldn’t face this issue. Could you please make sure that is the case?

    Hope that helps and please do not hesitate to let us know if you need our assistance with anything else.

    JM
    Rank Math free

    Thanks for the response.

    1. I think I figured out the Search Console issue just now. I’ve always submitted my sitemap indexes and Google has picked up all the sitemaps ok. This is when two of the sitemaps kept failing though. I just removed that and re-submitted each of the individual sitemaps instead, and now they all seem to be showing up without errors in Search Console. Hopefully that’ll help if anyone else runs into that problem.

    2. I do have author archives enabled, and they’re set to be indexed. I’m wondering if it’s a permissions error of some kind. I used the User Role Editor plugin previously to change some of the user capabilities assigned to authors and to move old authors into a new category. I do have those user roles all set to be included in the sitemap under Sitemap Settings >> Authors though. So I thought they’d be included. I’m not sure why they’d get added to the sitemap when I open and edit one of their posts… but could it be tied to a certain user capability that your plugin is looking for? If so, I can reinstall User Role Editor and make sure they’re given those privileges. I’m just not sure why me editing one of their posts would seem to override that though. But if you have custom user capabilities it’s looking for, that’s something I can certainly check into.

    JM
    Rank Math free

    Update: I don’t think user capabilities are the issue. I just re-installed User Role Editor and reset the main author level to its default roles. Then I reset the RankMath settings both in SEO titles & meta and the sitemap settings. And the authors still aren’t showing unless I’d opened and re-saved one of their posts.

    Hello,
    Can you please edit your post and add your website’s login details in the Sensitive area http://i.mythemeshop.com/ZmJGxp by using this plugin?

    Temporary Login Without Password

    Looking forward to helping you.

    • This reply was modified 5 years ago by Pratik.
    JM
    Rank Math free

    Done.

    JM
    Rank Math free

    Quick added note: When I set up your temporary administrator account to review this, that account was added to the author sitemap right away.

    I was looking at this with another developer yesterday and it looks like this is similar to problem where RM isn’t assigning scores to posts when first installed (says “update this post” in the post list for everything instead, assigning it a score of 0 rather than acknowledging the existing/imported meta data). It’s relying on either a creation function or post update process to run.

    That would be fine for brand new sites, but it’s a major problem for anyone with an existing site (especially mid-sized to large ones). The data’s there. It’s just not being pulled. If it can be processed one time on initial install, that would be the expected behavior and how other SEO plugins seem to handle it.

    We’re going to dig more into it later today, even if just to try to force an empty update on all posts to make scores kick into the post list. It’s not ideal, but if we can do that to get it working on this site, I’ll let you know how in case it help you with a broader fix. But they’re big enough issues I’ll definitely have to hold off switching on any other of my company’s sites for now.

    JM
    Rank Math free

    I got assistance elsewhere with a workaround for this problem. It’s not a real solution because it requires updating all posts just to pull each other once (and it did still miss a few, but adding 5 manually is easier than adding dozens or more manually).

    Until a fix can be worked into the plugin, the accepted answer in this thread worked to bring authors into the sitemap if they were there before Rank Math was installed. Note: if you have a lot of posts, you might need to increase your php max execution time: set_time_limit(300); (or whatever number of seconds you need — I used 720 to prevent crashes at 1500 posts). You can just add that line to your wp-config.php. Not perfect, and temporary, but it’ll help if you need this fixed asap.

    Hello,

    It seems like a bug with the 2nd point you mentioned.

    In a few hours, we will be releasing an update which should fix that.

    Please update and then revert back to this ticket.

    Also replying to your other ticket.

    Thank you for your patience and cooperation.

    JM
    Rank Math free

    I have no idea if your updates solved the problem because, as I noted in this thread already, I had another developer come up with a workaround to fix it on my site previously. So the updates have no effect when I’d already resolved it with my own sitemap.

    Todd
    Rank Math free

    Hi,

    In that case, I am closing this ticket.

    Please do update in case you need any other assistance.

    Joblux
    Rank Math free

    Same issue here, thousands of subscribers and only 360 shows in the author sitemap …

    Joblux
    Rank Math free

    How do you get to show al authors urls inthe sitemap event hose who did not post anything?

    Hi @Joblux

    Your other ticket on this has already been replied here: https://support.rankmath.com/ticket/author-sitemap-2/?view=all, please check and let us follow up there to avoid duplicating threads.

    Looking forward to helping

Viewing 13 replies - 1 through 13 (of 13 total)

The ticket ‘Authors not appearing in sitemap unless a post is updated’ is closed to new replies.