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i need help figuring out why google will not fetch sitemap and why its saying general http error
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Hello, we apologize for the issue you are facing with Google not being able to crawl your sitemap and the general HTTP error message. Here are some steps you can take to troubleshoot this issue:
1. Validate Your Sitemap
First, ensure that your sitemap is correctly configured. You can use the Validate XML Sitemap tool. Enter your sitemap URL and click VALIDATE SITEMAP. If there are no issues, you should see a success message.
2. Check Sitemap Location
Make sure your sitemap is located in the root folder of your WordPress installation. The URL should look like this:
https://yourdomainname.com/sitemap_index.xml3. Ensure Posts Are Set to Index
If all your posts are set to noindex, your sitemap will be empty. Go to Rank Math SEO → Titles & Meta and ensure the Index checkbox is enabled in the Robots Meta settings.
4. Flush the Cache
If your sitemap appears outdated, you may need to flush the sitemap cache. Navigate to Rank Math SEO → Sitemap Settings, increase the value of Links Per Sitemap by one, and save your settings.
Then, go to Settings → Permalinks and click Save Changes to apply the current settings.
5. Exclude Sitemap from Caching
Ensure that your sitemap is not being cached by any caching plugins. You can refer to this article on how to exclude sitemaps from caching.
6. Check for Restrictions from Web Host
If you can access the sitemap but Google cannot, it might be restricted by a security plugin or your web host. Check if any security measures are blocking access to crawlers and adjust accordingly.
If you continue to experience issues after trying these steps, please reply to this ticket, and a human agent from the Rank Math Support team will assist you further.
Sources:
Troubleshooting the “Couldn’t Fetch” Error in Google Search Console » Rank Math
How to Fix "Incorrect HTTP Header Content-Type" Error in Sitemaps » Rank MathHello,
Thank you for your query and we are so sorry about the trouble this must have caused.
Please follow the steps below:
1. Flush the Sitemap cache by following this video screencast:
https://i.rankmath.com/pipRDp2. 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. Apply the following filter code to your site.
add_filter( 'rank_math/sitemap/enable_caching', '__return_false');Here’s how you can add filter to your WordPress site:https://rankmath.com/kb/wordpress-hooks-actions-filters/
4. After that, remove all your sitemaps from your GSC and resubmit only the primary one (https://yourwebsite.com/sitemap_index.xml).
If the issue persists, there may be a plugin conflict on your website which we need to check. Please edit the first post on this ticket and include your WordPress & FTP logins in the designated Sensitive Data section.
Please do take a complete backup of your website before sharing the information with us.
It is completely secure and only our support staff has access to that section. If you want, you can use the below plugin to generate a temporary login URL to your website and share that with us instead:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/temporary-login-without-password/
You can use the above plugin in conjunction with the WP Security Audit Log to monitor what changes our staff might make on your website (if any):
https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-security-audit-log/
We really look forward to helping you.
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