Hello,
Thank you for getting in touch.
Could you please check the following:
1. Is the sitemap working fine in your browser? You can check that by going domain(.)com/sitemap_index.xml
If the sitemap is working fine, you can try validating it on this link: https://www.xml-sitemaps.com/validate-xml-sitemap.html
If the validation works, please move to the second point.
2. Have you verified the correct version of your website on Google? Please check if you have verified the www (or non-www) and https (or http) version of your website. If there is a mismatch, please fix that.
3. Finally, make sure you have cleared the cache and excluded Google bot from seeing a cached version of your sitemap.
If you have followed these and you are able to view your sitemap without any problem, then Rank Math is outputting your sitemap correctly and the error must be coming from Google. You can try and use a 3rd party sitemap plugin to confirm. Just make sure you have disabled the Sitemap module of Rank Math in WordPress Dashboard > Rank Math > Dashboard when using a 3rd party sitemap plugin.
If the other plugin works, please do let us know.
Thank you.
Hi Uzair,
Thanks for the fast response. Regarding the possible solutions:
1. The sitemap is working fine in the browser. I’ve checked in both chrome n mozilla including the incognito mode. I’ve also validated that it’s working fine using the XML validator.
2. Since the preferred version of the site is https non www, I submitted it in that property.
I didn’t get the 3rd suggested solution, it would be great if you could explain what I should do step by step.
Earlier I used yoast plugin and it too gave me the same error while submitting sitemap.xml in GSC.
Thanks!
Hello,
Can you please follow these steps?
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 Head to WordPress Settings > Permalinks and resave your settings
4 Go back to your GSC and remove any submitted sitemap then only resubmit the main sitemap file(sitemap_index.xml)
Let us know if this helps you. Looking forward to helping you.
Hello, Michael
I did everything what did you say in the upper reply, but still, I am facing an unsupported file format error in GSC.
Please tell me what to do?
Hello,
You marked this as resolved.
Do you still need our further assistance?
We are here to help.
Thank you.
