two product sitemaps instead of one

Hello, we apologize for the inconvenience you are facing with the product sitemaps generated by the plugin.

To resolve the issue of having two blank product sitemaps (product-sitemap1.xml and product-sitemap2.xml) instead of one functioning sitemap (product-sitemap.xml), you can follow these steps:

1. Check for Plugin or Theme Conflicts:

   • Use the Health Check plugin to identify any conflicts with other plugins or themes that might be causing the blank sitemap issue.

2. Exclude Sitemaps from Caching:

   • If caching is affecting your sitemaps, exclude them from being cached. You can refer to our guide on how to exclude sitemaps from caching for detailed instructions.

3. Remove Blank Lines from Sitemaps:

   • Sometimes empty lines in sitemaps can cause issues. You can refer to our article on removing blank lines from sitemaps for more information.

If after following these steps, the issue persists, please feel free to assign this ticket to a human agent using the available buttons, and we will assist you further. Thank you for bringing this concern to our attention.

Sources:
How to Configure Sitemaps in Rank Math – Best Settings and Tips
Remove Blank Lines From Sitemaps » Rank Math
Rank Math Sitemap Issues and Their Fixes » Rank Math
Troubleshooting the “Couldn’t Fetch” Error in Google Search Console » Rank Math

Hello,

Thank you for contacting us and sorry for any inconvenience that might have been caused due to that.

This is absolutely normal because Rank Math automatically creates another sub-sitemap for your posts/pages/products if the count already exceeds the limit. This happens due to the Links Per Sitemap option we have in Rank Math > Sitemap Settings > General:

Please note that Google crawls small-sized sitemaps faster. With this in mind, Rank math uses the links per sitemap limit to break down sitemaps into smaller parts and you’ll not be penalized for this. You can also check Google’s guidelines for sitemaps: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/sitemaps/build-sitemap

Regarding the blank sitemap issue, please share your sitemap URL with us so that we can check this further for you.

Meanwhile, you can 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 filter/hook to your WordPress site:
https://rankmath.com/kb/wordpress-hooks-actions-filters/

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

Thank you.

Hello,

After checking your sitemap, we can see the issue is occurring because of the image URLs added there. Please check the screenshot in the sensitive data section for your reference.

Could you please confirm if you’re using any plugins to add the images to your products? To determine that, please follow this troubleshooting guide:
https://rankmath.com/kb/check-plugin-conflicts/

Here is a video you can follow as well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcIWRhcUP2c

Only the site admin would know and your users won’t be affected by this troubleshooting.

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

Thank you.

Hello,

Thank you for your patience.

Please refer to the image added in the sensitive data section. You can also use the Firefox browser to see the error in the images on your product pages.

Alternatively, you can disable this option in Rank Math > Sitemap Settings > General to see your product sitemap

Hope that helps.

Hello,

Please note that a sitemap is only one of many ways Google discovers the URLs and images of your site. Even if you don’t include the images on your sitemap, Google can crawl and index them.

However, we recommend including the images on your sitemap because, in this way, Google can easily find all the images on your page. If you want to include the images, we recommend you fix the image URLs first.

If you’re not sure from where the image URLs are coming, you can edit the first post on this ticket and include your WordPress & FTP logins in the designated Sensitive Data section so that we can check this further for you.

Please do take a complete backup of your website before sharing the information with us.

It is completely secure and only our support staff has access to that section. If you want, you can use the below plugin to generate a temporary login URL to your website and share that with us instead:

https://wordpress.org/plugins/temporary-login-without-password/

You can use the above plugin in conjunction with the WP Security Audit Log to monitor what changes our staff might make on your website (if any):

https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-security-audit-log/

Looking forward to helping you.

Thank you.