sitemap isn’t fetched by google search console

Hello,

We apologize for the issue you are facing with Google Search Console not fetching your sitemap. It sounds like you’ve already taken several important steps to troubleshoot the problem. Since the issue began after moving your website from a subdomain to a root domain, it’s possible that there are still some lingering references to the old sitemap in Google Search Console.

Here are a few additional steps you can take to resolve the issue:

1. Verify the Correct Sitemap URL: Ensure that you are submitting the correct sitemap URL in Google Search Console. The correct URL should be something like `https://rankmath.com/kb/fix-sitemap-issues/.

2. Add the Correct Sitemap to Google Search Console: Go to Indexing → Sitemaps in Google Search Console and add your new sitemap URL. Make sure there are no spaces in the URL when you submit it.

3. Check for URL Variations: Ensure that you have added all variations of your site (http and https, www and non-www) in Google Search Console. Sometimes, Google may fetch from a different variation than expected.

4. Wait for Google to Re-crawl: After making these changes, it may take some time for Google to re-crawl your site and update its records. You can also request a re-crawl of your site through the URL Inspection tool in Google Search Console.

5. Check for Caching Issues: Even though you mentioned that caching is confirmed not to be an issue, double-check if any server-side caching or CDN settings might still be affecting the sitemap.

If you continue to experience issues after trying these steps, please reply to this ticket with your website URL so that we can assist you further. A human agent from our support team will take over and provide more specific guidance based on your situation.

Thank you for raising this concern, and we’re here to help!

Hello,

Thank you for contacting Rank Math support. We apologize for any inconvenience caused.

Please share your website so we can check.

Then 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/

3. If the above steps don’t seem to work, kindly apply the following filter to your site.

add_filter( 'rank_math/sitemap/enable_caching', '__return_false');

Here’s how you can add a filter/hook to your WordPress site:
https://rankmath.com/kb/wordpress-hooks-actions-filters/

Once done, clear your website cache, remove all the submitted sitemaps, and resubmit only the index sitemap in the Search Console.

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

Thank you.

Hello,

As you have described, your sitemap is working without any issues if you visit it. In that case, there’s no issue with our plugin.

Please note that not all sitemaps are processed by Google. Not necessarily because there is something wrong with the sitemap. Even a perfect sitemap may not be processed by Google.

Most of the time, it’s still sitting in the queue waiting for processing. Remember, Google is processing millions of sitemaps daily, and sometimes it takes time to get to yours. But for whatever reason, Google never gets around to some sitemaps. It just doesn’t think it is worth it.

And Search Console sometimes shows ‘Pending’ as ‘couldn’t fetch’ incorrectly. You can check the replies of Google experts for the Couldn’t Fetch (especially for the TLDs except for .com) issues on the following threads:

https://support.google.com/webmasters/thread/29055233/missing-xml-sitemap-data-in-google-search-console-for-tld-domain?hl=en
https://support.google.com/webmasters/thread/31835653/sitemap-couldn-t-fetch-sitemap-couldn-t-be-read-by-google-search-console?hl=en

Don’t hesitate to get in touch with us if you have any other questions.