Posts Sitemap Adding new posts in Old One Sitemap1.xml

Hello,

We apologize for the issue you are facing with your post sitemaps. It seems that new posts are being added only to /post-sitemap1.xml, while you want them to be included in /post-sitemap3.xml as well.

Here are a few steps you can take to troubleshoot and potentially resolve this issue:

1. Check Sitemap Settings: Ensure that all your post types are configured correctly in the Rank Math settings. Go to Rank Math SEO → Sitemap Settings and verify that the settings for each post type are set to include them in the sitemap.

2. Review Post Status: Make sure that the new posts you are creating are published and not in draft or pending review status, as only published posts will appear in the sitemap.

3. Sitemap Index: If you have multiple post sitemaps, ensure that your sitemap index (/sitemap_index.xml) is correctly listing all your post sitemaps. This way, Google can discover all of them.

4. Clear Cache: If you are using any caching plugins, clear the cache after making changes to your sitemap settings. Sometimes, cached versions can prevent updates from being reflected.

5. Manual Submission: After ensuring everything is set up correctly, consider manually submitting the /post-sitemap3.xml to Google Search Console to prompt it to crawl that specific sitemap.

6. Check for Conflicts: If the issue persists, check for any plugin conflicts that might be affecting how Rank Math generates your sitemaps. You can use the Health Check plugin to help identify any conflicts.

If after trying these steps the problem continues, please reply to this ticket, and a human agent from the Rank Math Support team will assist you further. Thank you for raising this concern!

Hello,

Thank you so much for getting in touch.

New posts are expected to be included in the post-sitemap1.xml.

To make sure all sitemaps are up to date, 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. Then, remove all sitemaps from Google Search Console and resubmit only the primary one (https://yourwebsite.com/sitemap_index.xml).

Let us know how that goes.

Hello,

The location of the URLs within your sitemaps doesn’t matter as Google will surely crawl them. Also, post_sitemap1.xml is always on top of the list so Google should be able to crawl the new posts there. Please share a screenshot of the sitemap issues you see from Google Search Console.

As for the noindex tag issue, please share a screenshot of that error report from GSC here and the affected URLs.

You may share your screenshots using this tool: https://imgur.com/

Looking forward to helping you.

Hello,

The screenshot you shared does not indicate any problems with your sitemap. The “Temporary Processing Error” is an internal Google error and is unrelated to your sitemap. This error simply means that the sitemap wasn’t processed when the URL was initially crawled—this does not suggest there is an issue with the sitemap itself. You can learn more about this here.

To ensure Google finds new URLs more quickly, it’s best to place them on the first page of your sitemap. That’s why Rank Math adds new pages to the post-sitemap1.xml file, making sure this file is prioritized.

Regarding the reason your posts are not indexing, it appears from your screenshot that Google is aware of the page but has decided not to index it yet. You can find more information on how to resolve this issue here: https://rankmath.com/kb/crawled-currently-not-indexed/.

Lastly, it is normal for .webp images to appear under “Crawled – Currently Not Indexed” because Google indexes images differently than pages.

We hope this helps clarify your concerns. Please feel free to reach out if you have any further questions.

Hello,

Google decides when to crawl each sitemap and it is always not consistent and they don’t share the same schedule.

We can see that all your sitemaps are readable and has no errors.

If your posts still aren’t indexed on the SERP despite being listed in the sitemap and the robots meta tag is configured properly, then you’ll need to give Google some time to index them on the SERP.

You may force Google to recrawl the URLs by clicking the “REQUEST INDEXING” and see if that would work.

Don’t hesitate to get in touch with us if you have any other questions.

Hello,

You can request the indexing on Google Search Console but that is not a suitable indexing strategy as too many requests might give indications to Google that your website is spammy.

The only way to increase the crawling frequency and get posts indexed faster is by improving the authority of the domain by posting consistently, getting high-value backinks, and continuing the build the website’s SEO.

That’s what we suggest to get the indexing working faster in the long run.

Thank you.

Hello,

We are super happy that we could address your concern. If you have any other questions in the future, know that we are here to help you.

If you don’t mind me asking, could you please leave us a review (if you haven’t already) on https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/seo-by-rank-math/reviews/#new-post about your overall experience with Rank Math? We appreciate your time and patience.

If you do have another question in the future, please feel free to create a new forum topic, and it will be our pleasure to assist you again.

Thank you.