Why does Search Console detect referrals with old sitemaps?

Hello,

I understand the issue you are facing with Google Search Console detecting referrals with old sitemaps. It seems like you have made significant changes to your website, including reducing the number of games and creating individual articles for each game, as well as migrating to a new hosting provider.

When Google Search Console detects referrals with old sitemaps or high numbers that you no longer have, it could be due to various reasons such as cached data or outdated information. To address this issue, you can follow these steps:

1. Check Current Sitemap: Ensure that your current sitemap accurately reflects the content on your website after the changes you made. You can generate a new sitemap using Rank Math or any other SEO plugin you are using.

2. Submit Updated Sitemap: Submit the updated sitemap to Google Search Console to help Google understand the current structure of your website and the URLs you want to be indexed.

3. Request Indexing: After submitting the updated sitemap, you can request indexing for the new URLs to prompt Google to crawl and index them.

4. Inspect URLs: Use the URL Inspection Tool in Google Search Console to check individual URLs and see how Google discovered them. This can help you identify any lingering references to old sitemaps.

If after following these steps you still encounter issues with Search Console detecting old sitemaps or incorrect referrals, please reply to this ticket, and a human agent from the Rank Math Support team will assist you further.

Thank you for bringing this concern to our attention. We are here to help you resolve this issue and ensure your website’s visibility on Google is accurate and up-to-date.

Warm regards.

Sources:
Why GSC Shows "No Referring Sitemaps Detected"
Why Google Search Console Shows Zero Discovered URLs Through Sitemap? » Rank Math
Why Did My Website Disappear From Google Search? » Rank Math