Dear Jeremy,
Thanks. Even though the sitemap loads perfectly fine, may I ask why google search console cannot fetch my sitemap from time to time?
Best regards
TinTin
I am also having same issue and tried almost all solutions provided in this discussion but my 1 post about best 4k projector isn’t fetched by GSC.
Looks like i am not the only one with this issue.
May I ask for any updates from RankMath side?
Thanks.
Hello,
We did a thorough test on your sitemap and everything looks good. It works fine on every test we ran. There are a few possible ways forward:
This might be a glitch on Google’s side, which means it could go away on its own in a few days. Sometimes Google shows the “couldn’t fetch” error instead of the “pending” status. We checked if Google can see your page using the Google Rich Test and it can.
You can also do this yourself by going to the Google URL Inspection Tool and entering your full sitemap URL. Then click “Live Test” (https://i.rankmath.com/i/qi72Gd) and switch to the Source tab (https://i.rankmath.com/i/VHkaDV). You should see the XML content of your sitemap there. If you do, then it means Google can fetch your content, and the error on your search console is just a temporary glitch on Google’s end.
We hope this helps. Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns.
Dear team,
It has been over a week since Google shows the “couldn’t fetch” error, I have done the live test and it shows that the XML content of your sitemap.
Under this case, should I submit the sitemap again or just leave it there?
Thank you.
Hello,
The sitemap is working fine and Googlebot can also crawl it without any issues. Since the error appears even when the sitemap loads fine, it could be related to a server-side issue. If the site is down or inaccessible due to a server issue while Google visits the sitemap URL, they won’t be able to read it.
Since the sitemap works fine and Google hasn’t shared a specific error other than “could not be read”, you can wait for the next crawl and see if the error goes away. You can also try switching to a different sitemap plugin and let us know if the error doesn’t show up with their sitemap. Please make sure to disable our plugin’s sitemap module in WP Dashboard > Rank Math SEO > Dashboard while you use another sitemap plugin to monitor the situation.
Looking forward to helping you.
Dear team,
Since the sitemap still cannot be read after a long period of time, we have done further investigation under google search console.
We have done a live test on the sitemap url, and we notice that Page fetch Successful, but indexing not allowed due to ‘noindex’ detected in ‘X-Robots-Tag’ http header.
May I ask how to solve this issue?
Thank you.
Hello,
This isn’t an issue. The sitemaps are set to noindex because they are not supposed to be indexed in the SERPs. They are only used for URL discovery. You should not use the URL Inspection tool for the sitemaps, they should be submitted only to the sitemap section of your GSC account.
Please do not hesitate to let us know if you need our assistance with anything else.
Dear team,
Thanks for your reply.
We have followed the all guidelines above (like live test and we do see the XML content of our sitemap there). However, since the sitemap is still shown as “could not be read” under GSC for at least for a month, what do you suggest us to fix this issue?
Thank you.
Hello,
Just to confirm, have you had a chance to test the issue by switching to a different sitemap plugin as we previously suggested? This will help us determine if the issue is specific to Rank Math or related to something else on the server side.
Looking forward to hearing back from you.
Dear team,
Not yet, as we still trust rank math.
What else sitemap plugin do you suggest us to use?
Thank you.
Hello,
Sorry for the unexpected delay and any inconvenience caused due to that.
Here is a plugin you can use to test: https://wordpress.org/plugins/google-sitemap-generator/
Let us know how that goes.
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.
