Hello,
I’m sorry to hear that you are facing issues with your sitemap showing as an HTML page on Google Search Console. This error usually occurs when Google expects a sitemap file but receives an HTML page instead.
To resolve this issue, please follow these steps:
-
Make sure you have submitted the correct XML sitemap to Google. You should submit the sitemap available on your website at `http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9
-
If you have confirmed that the correct URL is submitted and you are still facing the error, check for any plugin conflicts using the Health Check plugin.
-
If you are using W3 Total Cache along with Rank Math, create another user agent group and add the ‘googlebot‘ user agent to it.
-
If the above steps do not resolve the issue, include the following filter in your theme’s functions.php or rank-math.php file:
add_filter( 'rank_math/sitemap/enable_caching', '__return_false');
If after following these steps the issue persists, please reply to this ticket, and a human agent from the Rank Math Support team will assist you further.
Thank you for bringing this to our attention.
Best regards,
Sources:
Rank Math Sitemap Issues and Their Fixes » Rank Math
Rank Math Sitemap Issues and Their Fixes » Rank Math
Indexed, Not Submitted in Sitemap – Google Search Console » Rank Math
Rank Math Sitemap Issues and Their Fixes » Rank Math
Why the Sitemap_Index.xml is Throwing a 404 Error » Rank Math
Hello,
Thank you for your patience.
We’ve checked your sitemap, and they are already working fine.
In this case, please follow these steps to flush your sitemap cache:
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, remove your submitted sitemaps and try submitting your main sitemap only.
Hope that helps.
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.
