Hello,
We apologize for the issue you are facing with your sitemap not being fetched by Google Search Console. Thank you for raising this concern.
To resolve the errors you’re encountering, here are some steps you can follow:
1. Ensure Your Sitemap is in the Root Directory
Your sitemap should be located in the root folder of your WordPress installation. The correct URL format for your sitemap should look like this:
https://rankmath.com/kb/couldnt-fetch-error-google-search-console/
If your current sitemap URL is siteurl/index.php/sitemap.xml, it indicates that it is not in the correct location. You may need to check your WordPress settings or consult your hosting provider to ensure that the sitemap is generated correctly and placed in the root directory.
2. Fixing the HTTP Error
If you are getting an HTTP error, you might want to:
- Flush Permalinks: Go to your WordPress dashboard, navigate to Settings → Permalinks, and click Save Changes without making any changes. This can help resolve 404 errors.
- Check Server Configuration: Ensure that your server is configured correctly to serve the sitemap. If you’re using Apache or Nginx, you may need to add specific rewrite rules as mentioned in our documentation.
3. Validate Your Sitemap
You can also validate your sitemap using the Validate XML Sitemap tool to check for any issues.
If you continue to experience problems after following these steps, please reply to this ticket, and a human agent from the Rank Math Support team will assist you further.
We hope this helps you get your sitemap working properly!
Sources:
Troubleshooting the “Couldn’t Fetch” Error in Google Search Console » Rank Math
Rank Math Sitemap Issues and Their Fixes » Rank Math
Hello,
Thank you for contacting us and sorry for any inconvenience that might have been caused due to that.
Could you please share your sitemap URL with us so that we can check the issue further for you?
Meanwhile, 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 sitemap, and resubmit only the /sitemap_index.xml in the Search Console.
Regarding the index.php, please head over to WordPress Dashboard > Settings > General and make sure only your website URL is added in the WordPress URL and Site URL options without the index.php.
Let us know how it goes. Looking forward to helping you.
Thank you.
https://vfxloot.com/sitemap_index.xml
this is my sitemap url and i changed the permalinks to post name to remove the index.php in between the url,
but i am still getting the http error
General HTTP error
1 instance
We encountered an error while trying to access your sitemap. Please ensure that your sitemap is present at the specified address and is not blocked to Google. See our help center for more debugging help.
above is the error
you can close this ticket, sitemap is updated i guess permalink was the main problem here but can you tell me if in future i post something sitemap will be updated automatically or not?
Hello,
Glad that everything has been sorted out.
Please feel free to reach out to us again in case you need any other assistance.
We are here to help.
Thank you.
