Help Needed: Remove XSL Stylesheet and Add Hreflang Entries to Site

Hello,

We apologize for the issue you are facing. To remove the XML stylesheet declaration (XSL) and add hreflang entries to your sitemap in Rank Math, you can follow these steps:

1. Remove the XML Stylesheet Declaration

To remove the XSL stylesheet declaration from your sitemap, you can add a filter to your theme’s rank-math.php file. Here’s how:

1. Navigate to WordPress Dashboard → Appearance → Theme File Editor.
2. Select the rank-math.php file from the right sidebar.
3. Add the following code at the end of the file:

   add_filter( 'rank_math/sitemap/xsl', '__return_false' );

4. Click on the Update button to save your changes.

2. Add Hreflang Entries to Your Sitemap

To add hreflang tags inside each ` block in your generated XML sitemap, you can use a similar approach by adding a filter in the samerank-math.php` file:

1. In the same rank-math.php file, add the following code:

   add_filter( 'rank_math/sitemap/entry', function( $url ) {
      // Add hreflang tags here
      $url['xhtml:link'] = [
          [ 'rel' => 'alternate', 'hreflang' => 'bg', 'href' => 'https://support.rankmath.com' ],
          [ 'rel' => 'alternate', 'hreflang' => 'en', 'href' => 'https://support.rankmath.com' ]
      ];
      return $url;
   }, 10, 1 );

2. Make sure to replace the URLs with your actual URLs for each language.
3. Click on the Update button to save your changes.

Important Note

Before making any changes to your theme files, we recommend taking a backup of your website’s files and database to prevent any data loss.

If you need further assistance or if these modifications do not work as expected, please reply to this ticket, and a human agent from our support team will assist you further.

Thank you for raising this concern!

Sources:
How to Fix "Incorrect HTTP Header Content-Type" Error in Sitemaps » Rank Math