Hello,
Thank you for contacting Rank Math, and sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused you.
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/
Once done, clear your website cache and resubmit the sitemap_index.xml in the Search Console.
That should fix the issue. Please let me know if that does not. We are here to assist.
Hey Azib, thanks for your quick reply! I followed these three steps (very good to know!) and re-submitted the sitemap. Will keep an eye on GSC.
Hello,
Let us know how it goes.
Meanwhile, if you have any questions, please feel free to ask.
We are here to assist you.
Hi, Rank Math team,
I’m afraid the issue still persists: https://paste.pics/FMFUT
I’m also experiencing the same issue with https://www.mrm-messser.de, one of my other clients’ websites.
Both websites are using the WP-Optimize caching plugin, in which I put the sitemap files on the exclusion list as you suggested. I also completely de-activated the plugin on both sites now.
If you have any other suggestions, I would truly appreciate them.
Thanks!
Matt.
Hello,
I’ve checked your sitemap, and they are already redirecting to its final version.
Could you please follow the steps in this link for troubleshooting this issue?
https://rankmath.com/kb/couldnt-fetch-error-google-search-console/#num-6-rename-the-sitemap-file
Once done, give Google some time to recrawl the sitemaps and let us know if the issue still persists.
I hope that helps.
Thank you.
Hi Reinelle,
Thanks! I went through that doc and found that the validation tool on xml-sitemaps.com gives me the following error:
mrm-messer.de: https://paste.pics/FPB62
There are no validation errors for schmuckmemory.de, and also, none of the other checks on the guide you linked give any cause for concern: any pages I want indexed are indexable, sitemap cache is flushed (several times), I’m not running any caching plugins atm, there’s only one version of either sitemap afaik, sitemap URL matches the site URL set in Dashboard > General Settings, redirects work.
On mrm-messer.de, I found that the non-www versions of the URL don’t properly redirect though (using httpstatus.io); I wrote to the hosting company about that.
Step 6 in the troubleshooting guide recommends renaming the sitemap, but only lists instructions for submitting the sitemap to Google in a different way. How do I go about renaming the actual file?
Lastly, after all this, both mrm-messer.de and schmuckmemory.de remain not indexed on Google. Is there anything else you can see that might be off or odd about those two sitemaps? What am I doing wrong?
Thanks,
Matt.
Hello,
I checked the sitemap, it is validated without any errors:
Please flush the Sitemap cache by following this video screencast and check again:
https://i.rankmath.com/pipRDp
I’ll also suggest to add this filter in the theme’s functions.php file:
add_filter( 'rank_math/sitemap/enable_caching', '__return_false');
Here is a guide you can follow to add the filter:
https://rankmath.com/kb/wordpress-hooks-actions-filters/#functions-php-file
For step 6, you can submit this URL in the Search Console, https://domain.com/?sitemap=1, it will do the same job as that of renaming the sitemap file. We do not have an option to rename the actual file.
Hope that helps.
Thank you.
Thanks for your quick reply. I re-checked the sitemap with the validator and indeed, I am now getting a green light, too. I also added the filter to functions.php.
I re-submitted the sitemap using the link you suggested:
Screenshot 1 – https://paste.pics/FPC5U
Screenshot 2 – https://paste.pics/FPC6Y
The URL looks strange to me and I can’t quite understand how submitting that URL to GSC will rename the actual file on my website’s server, but I’ll wait and see what Google does with it.
Can you elaborate on how that renames the file?
I appreciate your help, thanks! 🙂
Hello,
The ?sitemap=1 is the alternate URL to access the sitemap.
As Rank Math creates the sitemaps dynamically, there is no file stored in the website files. So you should use this alternate URL, it does the same job as that of renaming the sitemap file(if the website is stored in website files) and works the same as sitemap_index.xml.
Hope that clarifies your query.
Let us know if you have any other questions.
We are here to assist you.
Thanks for explaining, Anas! I’ll keep an eye on both GSC properties, fingers crossed the websites will be indexed soon.
Hello,
Sure, and if there’s anything else that we can assist you with, please let us know.
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.
