Hello,
Thank you for contacting us and we regret the inconvenience caused.
I checked your sitemaps and all the sitemaps are loading properly.
However, upon checking your sitemaps with Google bot, the sitemaps are returning a 403 (forbidden) error.
Please have a look at the screenshot in the sensitive data section of this ticket.
Please ensure that no security plugin or firewall is blocking the sitemaps. You may also get in touch with your hosting provider to see if they’re blocking the sitemaps.
Once the sitemaps are excluded from getting blocked, please clear your website’s cache and remove all the sitemaps from your Google Search Console account, and then submit only the main sitemap (your-domin.com/sitemap_index.xml) to fix the issue.
Please let us know how that goes.
Thank you.
Hello Sir, I am unable to diagnose the problem behind it, I have no security plugin installed and even I have removed my site from Cloudflare CDN. I have read somewhere that Modsecurity may be behind it and when I disabled it, Googlebot accessed my sitemap. But “Googlebot smartphone and desktop” are easily accessing my sitemap, even if ModSecurity is on. What Do you suggest Sir?
Hello,
ModSecurity might cause this issue.
However, at the current stage, I tested your sitemaps again and now they’re indeed accessible to Google bot. Please have a look at the screenshot in the sensitive data section of this ticket.
In this case, please follow the below steps:
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. Clear your website’s cache and remove all the sitemaps from your Google Search Console account, and then submit only the main sitemap (your-domain.com/sitemap_index.xml) (please ensure to replace “your-domain.com” with your actual domain).
Further, give Google some time to crawl your website again and see if the issue is fixed.
Hope that helps.
Thank you.
Thanks, Sir, I will apply tips suggested by you.
Thanks for replying.
Hello,
Sure, please let us know how that goes.
In the meantime, if there’s anything else that we can assist you with, please let us know.
Thank you.
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.
