/page-sitemap.xml Couldn’t fetch

Hello,

I apologize for the issue you are facing with the /page-sitemap.xml returning a "Couldn’t fetch" error. This can be frustrating, but there are several steps you can take to troubleshoot this issue:

1. Validate Your Sitemap

Make sure your sitemap is correctly configured. You can use the Validate XML Sitemap tool to check for any issues. If your sitemap is valid, it should return a success message.

2. Check Sitemap Location

Ensure that your sitemap is located in the root folder of your WordPress installation. The URL should look like this:

https://support.rankmath.com

3. Ensure Posts Are Set to Index

If all your posts are set to noindex, your sitemap may appear empty. Go to Rank Math SEO → Titles & Meta and ensure the Index checkbox is enabled for your posts.

4. Flush Permalinks

Sometimes, flushing permalinks can resolve issues. Go to the Permalinks settings in your WordPress dashboard and click Save Changes without making any changes.

5. Check Server Configuration

If you are using Apache or Nginx, ensure that the necessary rewrite rules are in place. For Apache, you may need to add rules to your .htaccess file, and for Nginx, you will need to modify your Nginx config file. You can find the specific rules in our documentation:

• Apache Rewrite Rules
• Nginx Rewrite Rules

6. Add Correct Site URL to Google Search Console

Make sure you have added the correct site URL as a property in Google Search Console and verify it if you haven’t already done so.

If you’ve tried all these steps and are still experiencing issues, we recommend replying to this ticket with your site URL so that a human agent from our support team can assist you further. Thank you for raising this concern, and we’re here to help!

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

Hello,

We checked your page sitemap and we can see it is working properly without any issues:

In this case, please try to follow the steps below and see if that works for you:

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, remove all the submitted sitemaps, and resubmit only the /sitemap_index.xml in the Search Console.

If the issue persists, please try to follow this guideline for further troubleshooting: https://rankmath.com/kb/couldnt-fetch-error-google-search-console/

Let us know how it goes. Looking forward to helping you.

Thank you.

Hello,

After following the steps we previously shared and the issue persists, please try removing all your sitemaps from your GSC account and submit only the following:

https://yourwebsite.com/?sitemap=1

If the issue persists on Google, kindly take a full screenshot of the latest sitemap error report. You can share your screenshots using this tool: https://imgur.com/

Looking forward to helping you.

Hello,

The last read column for your page-sitemap.xml is not yet updated.

Please give Google some time to recrawl it, and the date should be shown under the Last Read column just like your other sitemaps.

Looking forward to helping you.

Hello,

As we mentioned before, the /page sitemap hasn’t been crawled as the “Last read” column does not have a date like the other sitemaps

Once Google crawls your page-sitemap, a date will appear in that section.

Looking forward to helping you.

Hello,

We apologise that you are still having this issue.

If everything is fine on your end, and Google still returns the error, please note that not all sitemaps are processed by Google. Not necessarily because there is something wrong with the sitemap.

Even a perfect sitemap may not be processed by Google.

Most of the time, it’s still sitting in the queue waiting for processing. Remember, Google is processing millions of sitemaps daily, and sometimes it takes time to get to yours. But for whatever reason, Google never gets around to some sitemaps. It just doesn’t think it is worth it.

And Search Console sometimes shows ‘Pending’ as ‘couldn’t fetch’ incorrectly. You can check the replies of Google experts for the Couldn’t Fetch(especially for the TLDs except for .com) issues on the following threads:
https://support.google.com/webmasters/thread/29055233/missing-xml-sitemap-data-in-google-search-console-for-tld-domain?hl=en
https://support.google.com/webmasters/thread/31835653/sitemap-couldn-t-fetch-sitemap-couldn-t-be-read-by-google-search-console?hl=en

You can try using a different sitemap plugin like https://wordpress.org/plugins/xml-sitemap-generator-for-google/ to generate the sitemap and see if Google can read it. Please make sure to disable the Sitemap module of our plugin in WP Dashboard > Rank Math > Dashboard should you want to try theirs.

Let us know how that goes. Looking forward to helping you.