Hello,
Thank you for contacting Rank Math, and sorry for any inconvenience caused.
Log in to your web server via FTP and delete the robots.txt file present in the root folder.
It is the same folder where you have your wp-content, wp-admin
etc.. folders.
Once you delete the robots.txt file, Rank Math’s virtual robots.txt file will take over.
You can refer to this article for more information:
https://rankmath.com/kb/cant-edit-robots-txt/
The lower number in Discovered URLs that you see in Google Search Console just means that the URLs in the sitemap were already found by Googlebot by other means, instead of via the sitemap. For example, Googlebot may have found the URLs from internal links or possibly from links on another site.
However, please ensure that the sitemaps are excluded from caching:
https://rankmath.com/kb/exclude-sitemaps-from-caching/
Hope that helps and please do not hesitate to let us know if you need our assistance with anything else.
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.
