Sitemap failing on both Google and Bin

Hello,

We apologize for the issue you are facing with your sitemap not being fetched by Google and Bing. This can be frustrating, but there are several steps you can take to troubleshoot this problem.

1. Validate Your Sitemap

First, ensure that your sitemap is correctly configured. You can validate your sitemap using the Validate XML Sitemap tool. Just enter your sitemap URL and click VALIDATE SITEMAP. If there are any issues, the tool will provide feedback.

2. Check Sitemap Location

Make sure your sitemap is located in the root folder of your WordPress installation. The correct URL should look like this:
https://yourdomainname.com/sitemap_index.xml

3. Ensure Posts Are Set to Index

If all your posts are set to noindex, your sitemap will be empty. To check this, go to Rank Math SEO → Titles & Meta and ensure the Index checkbox is enabled for your posts.

4. Flush the Cache

If your sitemap seems outdated, you may need to flush the cache. Go to Rank Math SEO → Sitemap Settings, increase the value of Links Per Sitemap by one, and then save your settings. After that, navigate to Settings → Permalinks and click Save Changes to apply the current settings.

5. Exclude Sitemap From Caching

Ensure that your sitemap is not being cached by any caching plugins. You can refer to this article on ensuring that your sitemaps are excluded from caching.

6. Check for Plugin Conflicts

Sometimes, other plugins can conflict with Rank Math. You can use the Health Check plugin to identify any potential conflicts.

7. Submit Correct Sitemap URL to Google Search Console

Make sure you are submitting the correct version of your sitemap in Google Search Console. It should be added under Indexing → Sitemaps. If you continue to see the "Cannot be Fetched" error, try adding a forward slash before the sitemap URL and resubmit it.

If you’ve gone through these steps and are still experiencing issues, 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! We’re here to help you resolve it.

Sources:
Troubleshooting the “Couldn’t Fetch” Error in Google Search Console » Rank Math
Rank Math Sitemap Issues and Their Fixes » Rank Math

Hello,

Could you please share the affected sitemap URL so we can check?

Looking forward to helping you.

Hello,

We checked your sitemap, and we can see it is working properly without any issues:

In this case, 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 sitemaps, and resubmit only the /sitemap_index.xml in the Search Console and Bing Webmaster tools.

Let us know how it goes. Looking forward to helping you.

Thank you.

Hello,

Please navigate to WordPress Dashboard > Rank Math SEO > Sitemap Settings > General and take a screenshot of the page. You can take a screenshot using https://imgur.com/upload so that we can investigate the issue further.

Also, it seems that you’re using Rank Math PRO, but the account you have used to open this ticket is the Rank Math free version.

Can you please search and forward a receipt from FastSpring.com or the email address you used to purchase so we can locate your account and verify it?

Looking forward to helping you.

Hello,

Please note that some options are only available when you enable the Advanced Mode in Rank Math.

If you’re not able to find all the options in the sitemap settings, please switch to the Advanced Mode: https://rankmath.com/kb/switch-from-easy-to-advanced-mode/

Regarding the PRO subscription, if you want, we can merge your accounts so that you can keep the preferred email address active. To do that, please share the preferred email address on which you’d like to use your account, and we’ll do the needful.

Looking forward to helping you.

Thank you.