Hello,
I apologize for the issue you are facing with the sitemap returning a 404 error. Since you’ve already tried the blog post tutorial without success, let’s go through some additional steps that might help resolve this issue:
1. Check Permalink Structure
If you recently changed your permalink structure, ensure that your sitemap is updated accordingly. You can do this by navigating to Settings → Permalinks in your WordPress dashboard and simply clicking Save Changes to flush the permalinks.
2. Add Rewrite Rules
For both Apache and Nginx servers, you may need to add specific rewrite rules to your server configuration. Here’s how:
For Apache:
Add the following code to your .htaccess file:
# 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=$1 [L]
# END of Rank Math Sitemap Rewrite Rules
For Nginx:
Add the following code to your Nginx configuration file:
# START Nginx Rewrites for Rank Math Sitemaps
rewrite ^/sitemap_index.xml$ /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
3. Exclude Sitemap from Caching
If you are using a caching plugin, ensure that the sitemap files generated by Rank Math are excluded from being cached. This can often lead to outdated or incorrect sitemap responses.
4. Check Robots Meta Tag
Ensure that your posts and pages are set to index in the robots meta tag. If they are set to noindex, they will not appear in the sitemap, which could lead to a 404 error.
You can check this by navigating to Rank Math SEO → Advanced tab in the post editing screen.
5. Flush Sitemap Cache
After making any changes, navigate to Rank Math SEO → Sitemap Settings and change the Links Per Sitemap setting, then click Save Changes. This will help flush the sitemap cache.
If these steps do not resolve the issue, please reply to this ticket with your site URL so that a human agent can assist you further. Thank you for raising this concern, and we hope to help you get it resolved soon!
Sources:
Why the Sitemap_Index.xml is Throwing a 404 Error » Rank Math
Rank Math Sitemap Issues and Their Fixes » Rank Math
