The Site Map disappears and get replaced by 404 Page - Support

Resolved Anonymous
2 years, 5 months ago

Rank Math free

Dear Rank Math team,

I am reaching out today as I have been experiencing some issues with the Rank Math plugin.

Firstly, I would like to express my gratitude for the amazing plugin that you have created. It has been working flawlessly for me until the start of this month when I started encountering an error with fetching the site map. Whenever I try to access the site map, a 404 page appears instead. However, when I click “Save” on Rank Math, the XML appears. I have no idea what the issue is and would appreciate your help in resolving this problem.

The only change that I have made recently is turning my caching plugin to use Elementor’s new caching, but the XML is already excluded. I’m not sure if this has any relation to the issue that I’m facing.

Thank you for your time and attention to this matter. I look forward to hearing back from you soon.

Viewing 8 replies - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)

Alhan
2 years, 5 months ago

Hello,

Thank you for your query, and we are so sorry about the trouble this must have caused.

The website currently has no sitemap URL in the robots.txt file.

To confirm this, please visit the following robots link in sensitive data section.

You can also refer to the screenshots shared in the sensitive data section.

We kindly request that you edit the robots.txt file to replace it with correct sitemap URL.

Replace the lines in the robots.txt file with what we have shared in the sensitive data section.

Here’s a guide on how to edit your robots.txt using Rank Math:
https://rankmath.com/kb/how-to-edit-robots-txt-with-rank-math/

If you prefer, we can take care of this task for you. To do so, we would require access to the WordPress admin and website files through FTP or cPanel login credentials.

Also upon checking the all four variations of the sitemap in https://httpstatus.io/ we have found that the status code is 200 for 2 of the the sitemap variations. You can ckeck the screenshot for this in the sensitive data section.

Make sure to redirect all the XML sitemap variations to the final variation of the XML Sitemap.

Only one of the four variations should show a 200 status code. The three remaining ones should show 301.

And once you’ve done this, clear your website cache and try to submit your sitemap in the Google Search Console again.

Please try to follow the steps from the KB :
https://rankmath.com/kb/couldnt-fetch-error-google-search-console/#num-5-4-redirect-all-three-other-versions-to-your-preferred-variation

This should fix the issue. Let us know how it goes.

We hope that helps, and please don’t hesitate to get in touch if you have any other questions.

Thank you.

Anonymous
2 years, 5 months ago

Rank Math free

Hi,
Thank you so much for your detailed reply and for offering help. I’ve made all modifications you recommended. It was a bit tricky as I’m using Elementor hosting. Could you please check if all is working now? One of the site maps appears 404, I’m not sure if this is an issue? Thank you so much!

Anonymous
2 years, 5 months ago

Rank Math free

Hi,
I’m using Rank Math to do the redirect. I’m a bit confused when it comes to choose “Exact” or “Contains”. As it when I choose “Exact” it removes all the URL leaving only what after the slug “/sitemap_index.xml”

Is this the right way to do the redirect? I’ve added a screenshot.

Thank you

Reinelle
2 years, 5 months ago

Hello,

Please include Sitemap: before your sitemap URL in your robots.txt and should show like this:
https://rankmath.com/kb/how-to-edit-robots-txt-with-rank-math/#default-rules

Regarding your sitemap, please note that Rank Math’s redirection feature could not be used in this kind of redirect.

The redirection should be applied via your .htaccess file or server configuration. Here’s a link for more information:
https://rankmath.com/kb/how-to-redirect-www-urls-to-non-www/

Also, you may get in touch with your web host for assistance as they are in a better position to apply the redirects on your site to avoid unexpected issues since .htaccess is a sensitive file.

Hope that helps.

Thank you.

Anonymous
2 years, 4 months ago

Rank Math free

Thank you for your reply.

I have edited the robot.txt file, but I cannot edit the htaccess file because I am using Elementor Hosting and they do not allow any changes to it.

However, since I edited the robot.txt file, the sitemap on Google Console seems to be working fine. What do you think? However, whenever I do a site audit with Semrush or any other SEO software, it says that I have no sitemap even though it looks fine on Google Console.

Thank you and Looking forward to your reply

Rakibuzzaman Siam
2 years, 4 months ago

Hello,

Please note that Rank Math generates your sitemap dynamically so if these tools expect a physical file, this won’t work. Since your sitemap is working perfectly and it is already added to your robots.txt file so you can safely ignore the warning.

Hope that helps and please don’t hesitate to let us know if you have any other questions.

Thank you.

Anonymous
2 years, 4 months ago

Rank Math free

Thank you so much for helping me with my website! Much appreciated.

Princess
2 years, 4 months ago

Hello,

We are super happy that this resolved your issue. If you have any other questions in the future, know that we are here to help you.

If you don’t mind me asking, could you please leave us a review (if you haven’t already) on https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/seo-by-rank-math/reviews/#new-post about your overall experience with Rank Math? We appreciate your time and patience.

If you do have another question in the future, please feel free to create a new forum topic, and it will be our pleasure to assist you again.

Thank you.

Viewing 8 replies - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)

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