Help Needed: Junk Sitemap Appearing on My New Domain Post Rank Math SEO Installa

Hello,

We apologize for the issue you are facing with your sitemap showing unrelated content after installing Rank Math SEO. This can happen due to a few reasons, especially with a newly purchased domain. Here are some steps you can take to resolve this issue:

1. Check for Existing Sitemap Files: Ensure that there are no existing sitemap files on your server that might be conflicting with Rank Math’s generated sitemap. You can do this by accessing your server via FTP and looking for any static files named sitemap.xml or similar. If you find any, please remove them.

2. Validate Your Sitemap: Use the Validate XML Sitemap tool to check if your sitemap is correctly configured. This will help identify any issues with the current sitemap setup.
   

3. Ensure Posts Are Set to Index: Make sure that your posts are set to index. Go to Rank Math SEO → Titles & Meta and check the Robots Meta settings to ensure the Index checkbox is enabled.
   

4. Flush Cache: If you are using any caching plugins, make sure to flush the cache and exclude the sitemap from being cached. This can help in displaying the correct sitemap content.
   

5. Check for Plugin Conflicts: Sometimes, other plugins can conflict with Rank Math. You can use the Health Check plugin to identify if there are any conflicts causing this issue.

6. Reconfigure Rank Math Settings: If the above steps do not resolve the issue, consider reconfiguring your Rank Math settings or reinstalling the plugin to ensure everything is set up correctly.

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.

Thank you for bringing this concern to our attention!

Sources:
Rank Math Sitemap Issues and Their Fixes » Rank Math
Troubleshooting the “Couldn’t Fetch” Error in Google Search Console » Rank Math

Hello,

Thank you for your query and we are so sorry about the trouble this must have caused.

Your sitemap is currently not generated by our plugin. If that is generated by our plugin, it should look like this:

Please follow the steps below to resolve this:

Please follow the steps below:

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. 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. Access your website’s root directory via FTP or your CPanel’s File manager and locate any physical XML files and remove them.

As for the junk URLs you see on Google SERP, it appears that you have been affected by a Japanese keyword hack. Please refer to this guide to help you further resolving your issue: https://web.dev/fixing-the-japanese-keyword-hack/

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

Hello,

Your website is infected with malware from the well-known Japanese keyword hack and it’s trying to hijack the sitemap generation from our plugin.

You will need to perform a security audit and remove all malware from the website to be able to get the normal generation of the sitemap once again.

Thank you.

Hello,

Your hosting company will be the best resource for this, they should be able to take the necessary actions to rectify this. Please reach out to your host for help with this.

But you can also review these guides:

— https://web.dev/articles/fix-the-japanese-keyword-hack
— https://www.malcare.com/blog/japanese-keyword-hack/
— https://www.reddit.com/r/bigseo/comments/18e7vl7/my_site_suffered_a_japanese_keyword_hack_how_long/
— https://www.getastra.com/blog/911/japanese-keyword-hack/
— https://support.google.com/webmasters/thread/252726401/japanese-keyword-hack?hl=en
— https://blog.sucuri.net/2023/09/how-to-find-fix-japanese-seo-spam.html

We hope this helps you resolve the issue. Don’t hesitate to contact us again with any other questions or concerns regarding Rank Math. We are always happy to help.

Thank you for choosing Rank Math!