Hello,
Thank you for contacting Rank Math & for the feedback and sorry for any inconvenience caused.
When adding posts and pages to the sitemap, Rank math uses the name of the post or page in WordPress rather then the label. If you head to Rank math > Titles & Meta, are the custom posts & taxonomies shown on Rank math with the customized label ?
Would you also mind checking if the option to change the pages label also affects the actual WP-Name or just the label shown in the front end?
Looking forward to helping you. Thank you.
Hi Michael,
Thanx for your incredibly prompt reply!
So the default permalink for the posts created in this plugin is glossary. This was successfully relabelled explainers in the plugin settings.
This corresponds with the URL/WP name and permalink, e.g.: https://nextinstitute.org/explainers/superintelligence. /%postname%/ is explainers.
Regarding Rank Math Titles & Meta
The Explainers sitemap is mentioned on the Post Type list as it is supposed to.
Google Console
4 Glossary sitemaps are in /sitemap_index.xml. But see below: URLs are not recognized by Google.
The Explainers sitemap is not created on the Console’s sitemap list
and gives this error messsage this: http error 400, sitemap could not be read. Discovered URLs: 0.
When /explainers-sitemap.xml is specifically submitted get Type: Unknown and Status: Couldn’t fetch.
URL inspection individual posts
“URL is not on Google.” “This page is not in the index, but not because of an error”. Sitemap: N/A. Referring page: none detected. All crawl issues: N/A. Indexing caonicals: N/A.
THIS IS NEW DISCOVERY: It is possible to request indexing of the individual Explainers posts.
I requested indexing for Superintelligence post. 2 days later URL was “not on Google”, but it explained why.
There was an issue with the User-declared canonical vs Google-selected canonical and a redirect (Coverage: Page with redirect). There was no redirect though – maybe the plugin redirects somehow? ‘Superintelligence’ then showed link INSPECT in Console. This solved it. Now this post ‘Superintelligence’ is submitted and indexed (/glossary-sitemap.xml).
All other pages still not indexed.
Hope this makes sense to you…
Best,
Marie-Claire
Hello,
Thank you for the update.
I’ve checked your site, and it seems that the /explainers-sitemap.xml is indeed getting an error 404 that’s why Google couldn’t fetch it. Could you please check if you have already included it in your sitemap on your WordPress Dashboard > Rank Math > Sitemap settings?
I hope that helps. Thank you, and looking forward to your update.
Hi there,
Yes, as I mentioned, Explainers is included in the Rank Math sitemaps, but Google and Bing don’t auto-recognize it. That is the issue… 😉 Please read previous email.
Possible clues (2 reoccuring issues that prevent indexing):
– mismatch User-declared canonical vs Google-selected canonical.
– redirect issues (on pages that were never redirected – caused by CM Glossary plugin?)
Hope this is useful.
Best,
Marie-Claire
Hello,
Thank you for the follow up.
There is likely an issue with Google which may require for you to give it sometime to update your site data accordingly.
If you check the post you requested indexing for, it is indexed along with other explainer pages.
Please give it some days then try inspecting the URLs to see if the issue still persists.
Hope this helps
Hi there!
Regrettably the URLs are not recoginized by Google. We are manually submitting them to Console to be indexed, that is why some URLs are now indexed. Very time-consuming.
Rank Math-created sitemap is not working…
Again: Although Rank Math lists the Explainers sitemap, there is no Explainers sitemap on the Google console, nor can it be made.
Google does not recognize it, gives “Couldn’t fetch” sitemap, error 404, if trying to make the Explainers sitemap.
I really hope you have a fix…
Best,
Marie-Claire
Hello,
I have validated your sitemap with https://www.xml-sitemaps.com/validate-xml-sitemap.html and it got validated successfully.
Please ensure you have verified the correct version of your website on Google.
Please check if you have verified the www (or non-www) and HTTPS (or HTTP) versions of your website. If there is a mismatch, please fix that.
Finally, make sure you have cleared the cache and excluded Google bot from seeing a cached version of your sitemap.
https://rankmath.com/kb/exclude-sitemaps-from-caching/
I hope this helps. Looking forward to helping you.
Thank you.
Additionally, the Console indicates for this sitemap: ‘Discovered URLs: 0′, Sitemap could not be read’, ‘General 404 HTTP error’. Thought I’d mention it again just in case you missed it 😉
Marie-Claire
One more addition / clue 🙂
On the Sitemaps: /sitemap_index.xml still contains /glossary-sitemap.xml (although the GLOSSARY permalink has been relabelled EXPLAINERS). This should be /explainers-sitemap.xml.
Hope this clarifies. Meanwhile, we are manually submitting all explainers, so hope you can find a fix.
Hello,
We might need to take a closer look at the settings. Please edit the first post on this ticket and include your WordPress & FTP logins in the designated Sensitive Data section.
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.
Hello,
I have updated the sensitive data as requested. Can you please check further?
Thank you.
Hi Anas,
Thanks! I have sent you the temp login in sensitive data section. Please note that CM Tooltip Glossary (the plugin that creates the pages) is open to make any alterations you require.
Now that you are at it: this glossary produces many internal links, which are not picked up by Rank Match either (unclear if Google sees them).
Best,
Marie-Claire
Hello,
We see the https://nextinstitute.org/glossary-sitemap.xml sitemap included in the sitemap_index.xml just fine.
It should be read by Google as well. Could you please check the last read date on Google Search Console for your sitemap?
If you are not sure, please add s******@r*********** in your Google Search Console property so we can check the issue first hand.
As for the naming of the sitemap, it hardly matters. A sitemap name does not affect its working and the sitemaps are purely to be seen by bots regardless of what they are named.
Hope that helps.
Hi there,
Thanks for looking at this. It seems Rank Math has various people working on support and you don’t seem to check the tread – and therefore keep missing the point.
Let me repeat the issue again: indeed the glossary sitemap is on the Google Console. Regrettably there are no GLOSSARY pages on my website as they all have been relabelled EXPLAINERS (e.g. nextinstitute.org/explainers/….). There should be an EXPLAINERS-SITEMAP.XML (like your listing mentions), but it doesn’t exist.
Therefore, in practice there is no sitemap and neither Google nor Bing finds the pages. We have been manually inspecting and submitting them for indezing (which works but is not workable on the long run (there will be hundreds of EXPLAINERS).
As I mentioned several times: CM Tooltip Glossary is willing to make any alterations in their plugin Rank Math may require to be able to auto-index.
I recognize that this is the free version, but please have a look at it (or, alternatively, let me know you won’t/can’t help us).
Please note that we would gladly pay for Rank Math (planning to do so , but if Rank Math does not recognize our relabelled pages we can’t really use it.
I hope you can fix this issue! Please have a look at the thread…
Best,
Marie-Claire
Regarding ‘last read’:
/explainers-sitemap.xml: ‘couldn’t fetch’. 404 error message.
/glossary-sitemap.xml Feb 25, 2021
It was always clear that the glossary sitemap exists, but Google and Bing don’t recognize it without manual Inspect/Submit action. We don’t care what it’s called, as long as the Glossary posts are recognized (regular pages are indexed – no problem).
Hope you can fix this.
Best regards,
Marie-Claire
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.
