Your Sitemap appears to be an HTML page error

  • Resolved wpalan

    (@wpalan)


    4 years, 8 months ago

    Hi, I am frustrated as I feel that the solution should be out there on the “WordPress/The SEO Framework” forum somewhere, but I have seemingly exhausted my search without locating the “golden nugget” cure, so I invite you to check my setup to see where I am going wrong. My Google Search Console displays three sitemaps, one for each page which I am quite aware is superfluous but I at least would like them to be read without the error which is being reported:
    “Your Sitemap appears to be an HTML page. Please use a supported sitemap format instead.”

    I did previously use the Yoast SEO plugin before removing and replacing with the superior SEO Framework plugin. Four files were transferred courtesy of the SEO Data Transporter plugin before Yoast was deactivated and removed. I notice that when my WP-Optimize plugin optimises my database tables, I still see a couple of Yoast references in there which may or may not be relevant. When I view the base sitemap within TSF, I see those three pages and ‘Output sitemap’ is obviously checked. In the root folder of my website, my robots.txt file reads as:

    User-agent: *
    Disallow: /wp-admin/
    Allow: /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php

    Sitemap: https://”my domain”/sitemap.xml

    What else can I tell you? I also have the “Google Analytics for WordPress by MonsterInsights” and “Wordfence Security” plugins active. Today, I re-submitted my sitemaps in my Google Search Console and they were all read with today’s date, showing status as “1 error” as quoted earlier.

    As I said, I fully appreciate that this is not critical by any means, but surely I should be able to arrange for these sitemaps to be read without error?
    I thank you in advance for your patience and help with this irritation.

    The page I need help with: [log in to see the link]

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
  • Plugin Author Sybre Waaijer

    (@cybr)

    Hi again, Alan!

    There should be only one sitemap present on your website. This one would be located at /sitemap.xml.

    The others can be removed from the “Index > Sitemaps” overview at Google Search Console. Those extraneous sitemaps are probably missing, and so they lead to a WordPress 404-page, which is written in HTML.

    To remove them, click on the Submitted Sitemap’s endpoint at Google Search Console, and the vertical ellipses at the top-right should allow you to delete the sitemap.

    Now, your site is so small that you need not worry about the database. Only when you’re accumulating a few thousands of posts, it might be worth optimizing. For now, you can leave the superfluous data be.

    I hope this helps ?? Cheers!

    Thread Starter wpalan

    (@wpalan)

    Hi again Sybre

    The three sitemaps present in my Google Search Console, each refer to one of the three active pages on my site. From what you are recommending, I should remove two of them, just leaving the Home page version (which links to the other two).
    If that is correct, I will action, which just leaves me with my main query which was asking, why would my single /sitemap.xml be reporting as being HTML, thereby throwing up an error in my Google Search Console? I do appreciate the non-importance of this sitemap but just wanted to understand how I could correct this detail. I like things to be tidy!
    Thank you Sybre for your kind help.

    Plugin Author Sybre Waaijer

    (@cybr)

    Hi Alan,

    Google recommends using a sitemap when you have thousands of pages, or when your internal linking leaves much to be desired. Furthermore, the sitemap helps speed up (re)indexing new and updated pages.

    From where I’m sitting, the current /sitemap.xml output looks as it should be; Litespeed also reports it as an XML document in its response headers. You can remove all other submitted sitemaps without negative side-effects.

    Thread Starter wpalan

    (@wpalan)

    All makes sense thank you Sybre. I have now resolved the HTML issue within Google Search Console so all looks good!

    Thread Starter wpalan

    (@wpalan)

    Posting closed

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
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