Hello,
I’m sorry to hear about the issue you are facing with your website’s Load Averages increasing significantly when activating the Rank Math sitemap. This can indeed cause disruptions in your website’s performance.
Since you have already tried excluding Rank Math sitemaps from caching following our guide at this link, and the problem persists, there might be other factors contributing to this issue.
One common reason for slow sitemap loading is insufficient server resources. I recommend checking your server configurations to ensure they meet the recommended values. You can navigate to Tools → Site Health → Info from your WordPress dashboard to compare your server configurations with the required values as shown in the screenshot below:
If your server values are lower than the recommended ones (PHP max input variables: 1000, PHP time limit: 120, PHP memory limit: 512M, Max input time: 150), you should contact your web host to increase them or consider upgrading your hosting plan.
If after verifying your server configurations, the issue persists, please feel free to reply here, 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 improve your website’s performance.
Warm regards.
Sources:
Rank Math Sitemap Issues and Their Fixes » Rank Math
How To Exclude Rank Math Sitemaps from Caching » Rank Math
Troubleshooting the “Couldn’t Fetch” Error in Google Search Console » Rank Math
How to Fix Page Fetch Error Failed: Hostload Exceeded » Rank Math
Recently, I used the following code in the functions.php file, but it also didn’t solve the problem:
// Exclude WP Statistics sitemaps from caching
add_filter('wp_statistics_cache_status', function ($status) {
$status['status'] = false;
return $status;
});
// Exclude Rank Math sitemaps from caching
add_filter( 'rank_math/sitemap/enable_caching', '__return_false');
the issue persists after verifying my server configurations
Here are my server specifications:
Maximum size of PHP input variables 1000
PHP maximum time 3000
PHP memory limit 4096M
Maximum input time 60
Maximum file upload size 900M
Maximum size of PHP data sent 900M
// Exclude Rank Math sitemaps from caching
add_filter( 'rank_math/sitemap/enable_caching', '__return_false');
// New Rank Math sitemaps caching exclusion as of 2024
function exclude_rank_math_sitemaps_from_cache( $exclusions ) {
if ( defined( 'RANK_MATH_FILE' ) ) {
$exclusions[] = 'sitemap_index.xml';
$exclusions[] = '(.*)sitemap(-+([a-zA-Z0-9_-]+))?\.xml';
}
return $exclusions;
}
add_filter( 'wp_super_cache_no_cache_uris', 'exclude_rank_math_sitemaps_from_cache' );
Hello,
Thank you for contacting Rank Math support, and sorry for any inconvenience that might have been caused due to that.
Please get in touch with your web host and ask them to set at least the following values:
Max input time: 600
PHP time limit: 240
PHP max input variables: 1000
If the issue persists, please share your website URL here with us so we can check the sitemap closely.
Looking forward to helping you.
Hello,
I have updated the sensitive data as requested. Can you please check further?
Thank you.
Hello,
We checked your sitemap and we can see you have a huge number of posts on your website. In this case, we suggest you increase the links per sitemap to 500-1000 from Rank Math > Sitemap Settings > General.
If the issue persists, you may need to increase the PHP values of your website so that Rank Math can handle this huge number of posts.
However, it looks like you’re currently using the Rank Math PRO plugin on your website, 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 so we can locate your account and verify it?
Let us know how it goes. Looking forward to helping you.
Thank you.
I have increased the number to 1000, but the same problem persists.
Hello,
You are currently using the PRO plugin on your website while your Rank Math account is in the Free plan. Please share the email address you used to purchase the PRO subscription so we can verify it.
Checking your website it seems to have loaded without any delays.
Please clear your website and browser caches and visit your website again.
If the issue persists, please share a screenshot from your end showing the slowdown issue. You may also share a video screencast from your end using this tool: https://loom.com/
Looking forward to helping you.
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.
