sitemap

Hello,

We apologize for the issue you are facing with the sitemap not generating properly. Since you’ve already tried several troubleshooting steps, here are a few additional suggestions that might help:

1. Check for Plugin Conflicts: Sometimes, other plugins can interfere with Rank Math’s functionality. You can use the Health Check plugin to check for conflicts without affecting your live site.

2. Flush Permalinks Again: Although you’ve mentioned resetting permalinks, it can be helpful to do it once more. Go to Settings → Permalinks in your WordPress admin area and click on Save Changes without making any changes.

3. Check .htaccess or Nginx Configuration: If you are using Apache, ensure that your .htaccess file has the correct rewrite rules for Rank Math. If you are using Nginx, make sure your Nginx configuration includes the necessary rewrite rules as well. Here’s a reference for the rewrite rules:

   • For Apache:

     # START of Rank Math Sitemap Rewrite Rules
     RewriteEngine On
     RewriteBase /
     RewriteRule ^sitemap_index.xml$ /index.php?sitemap=1 [L]
     RewriteRule ^([^/]+?)-sitemap([0-9]+)?.xml$ /index.php?sitemap=$1&sitemap_n=$2 [L]
     RewriteRule ^([a-z]+)?-?sitemap.xsl$ /index.php?xsl=$1 [L]
     # END of Rank Math Sitemap Rewrite Rules

   • For Nginx:

     # START Nginx Rewrites for Rank Math Sitemaps
     rewrite ^/sitemap_index.xml$ /index.php?sitemap=1 last;
     rewrite ^/([^/]+?)-sitemap([0-9]+)?.xml$ /index.php?sitemap=$1&sitemap_n=$2 last;
     rewrite ^/([a-z]+)?-sitemap.xsl$ /index.php?xsl=$1 last;
     # END Nginx Rewrites for Rank Math Sitemaps

4. Check File Permissions: Ensure that the permissions for the /public_html/ directory allow for the creation of files. The typical permission setting is 755 for directories and 644 for files.

5. Enable Debugging: If none of the above works, you might want to enable debugging in WordPress to see if any errors are being logged that could provide more insight into the issue. You can do this by adding the following lines to your wp-config.php file:

   define( 'WP_DEBUG', true );
   define( 'WP_DEBUG_LOG', true );
   define( 'WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY', false );

   After enabling this, check the wp-content/debug.log file for any errors related to Rank Math.

If these steps do not resolve the issue, please reply to this ticket with your site URL so we can assist you further. A human agent from our support team will take over and provide more specific guidance.

Thank you for raising this concern!

Sources:
Rank Math Sitemap Issues and Their Fixes » Rank Math