Hello,
Thank you for your query and we are so sorry about the trouble this must have caused.
The sitemap generation for the multilingual pages is handled by the translation plugin you use on the website.
Our plugin will only generate the URLs of the main language and then it’s entirely up to the settings and integration from the translation plugin with our plugin to generate the other languages or not.
In any case, Google will be able to find the other languages even if they are not inside the sitemap because of the hreflang tag that the translation plugins add to the source code.
Hope this helps clarify the situation.
Don’t hesitate to get in touch if you have any other questions.
Hi, thanks for the reply. Since Rank Math only generate the URLs of the main language, why in page and post sitemaps, both English and Chinese URLs exist?
https://bmsjourney.com/page-sitemap.xml
https://bmsjourney.com/post-sitemap.xml
Additionally, I have another question.
All 106 posts have been indexed by Google after they published. But one month ago, more and more posts became “Crawled – currently not indexed” You can check GSC screeshot here:https://ibb.co/Nx8JJKx
At the same time, I found sitemap generated by rankmath are not available and I can’t know when the issue happen. I wonder if disappearing of sitemap result to URLs which have been indexed before becoming unindexed or not?
P.S: Another website of mine also has the same issue.
Hello,
Could you please share the translation plugin you’re using so we can check?
Meanwhile, “Crawled – currently not indexed” means Google has crawled your page but has not indexed it yet. Finding a certain number of URLs with this status is entirely normal because Google does not index all the URLs we submit. This isn’t an error but there are some reasons for excluding the pages from its index.
Here’s a link for more information:
https://rankmath.com/kb/crawled-currently-not-indexed/
At the same time, I found sitemap generated by rankmath are not available and I can’t know when the issue happen.
Please provide more details of the not available you’re referring to here as upon checking your sitemaps, they are working fine.
Looking forward to helping you.
Thank you.
Hi, the translation plugin is Polylang. I also use Loco Translate for theme and plugins translation.
Meanwhile, You totally misunderstand what I asked about indexing issue:
I know the meaning of “Crawled – currently not indexed”. My question is why those posts which have already been indexed become “Crawled – currently not indexed”? (I checked each of them on by one making sure they’ve been indexed after posts publication; you can also check the GSC screenshot I provide to see the indexed pages turn to not indexed one month ago. Attached here again: https://ibb.co/Nx8JJKx)
Sitemaps are normal now because I refresh them the day before yesterday which not the problem I asked. I mean the indexing issue happen when sitemaps were unavailable. So I guess if the status of sitemaps affect indexing or not?
Did I explain clearly this time?
Hello,
Unfortunately, Rank Math is still not yet 100% compatible with Polylang.
Polylang contains an incompatibility in terms of the sitemap generation, and they are not adding the fix we created into their plugin: https://github.com/polylang/polylang/pull/373
We have been trying to collaborate with them for a few years but left the conversation when they refused to add the compatibility even though they have it for several other plugins (some of them have a smaller user base compared to RM).
So I guess if the status of sitemaps affect indexing or not?
Yes, sitemaps are one of the methods that search engines use to crawl your site aside from internal linking. If your sitemaps are not working before and Google uses your sitemaps to recrawl your site on that state, then it can cause indexing issues.
Regarding the crawled currently not indexed URLs, you may check the affected URLs using the URL Inspection Tool in your GSC to know their status. If they are indexed, then it could lead to reporting difference as we have mentioned here:
https://rankmath.com/kb/crawled-currently-not-indexed/#num-1-1-reporting-difference
However, if the URL Inspection Tool also reflects the status as Crawled – currently not indexed, then it is certainly not a reporting issue. So you may need to look at the reported URLs and check if they have quality issues like thin content.
You can refer to this section in our guide:
https://rankmath.com/kb/crawled-currently-not-indexed/num-1-2-site-wide-quality-issue
Hope that helps.
Thank 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.
