Sitemap.xml 403 error

I use the Google XML Sitemaps plugin on my personal sites and any sites that I build and have never had an issue with BPS causing a 403 error. In my peronal opinion the Google XML Sitemaps plugin is the #1 sitemap plugin for WordPress. ??

I have seen this happen on sites I have worked on where the URL’s contain HTML character translations that cause you to be redirected to the web host’s default 403 or 404 page. Check your URL’s in your sitemap for unusual looking URL’s by downloading it and opening it with either an HTML editor or just regular old Notepad. The URL’s will have %’s percent signs and letters and numbers that need to corrected. What happens is that the HTML translations are coming from your permalinks in WordPress posts so you would just edit the permalink URL’s in posts that are showing up in your sitemap with strange looking URL’s. These are usually caused by having an apostrophe or other character in the permalink URL that translates to something that your web host thinks is invalid or malicious. Thanks.

I did what you said to do – I downloaded and installed Google XML Sitemaps and opened the sitemap.xml in a text editor. The URLs look exactly as they should with no extra stuff in the permalink or anything. I am wracking my brain trying to figure out where the problem is :/

Actually, I just changed the htaccess filename and it still gave a 403 error. So I’m guessing that’s not the problem afterall. I do appreciate your help as always though ??

Send me your sitemap and i’ll take a look at it. It has to be isolated to this because like i said i use the GXS plugin on every single site that i build and have never experienced a 403 error with the exception of bad URL’s in the sitemap. edward[at]ait-pro[dot]com Thanks.

Ah ha! I found the problem! It wasn’t you at all (why did I doubt?) hehe

The problem is because the blog is in a subfolder and there was an htaccess at the root causing a problem.

Thanks again for the help offer ??

Cool! Good catch! Thanks.