Issues with sitemap from Yoast SEO

Hello,

Thanks for reaching out.

Your Yoast-generated XML sitemap index should be found at https://www.gameszane.com/sitemap_index.xml. As you have rightly mentioned, it redirects to your homepage https://gameszane.com/ but it is available via the non-pretty permalinks at https://gameszane.com//index.php?sitemap=1.

This usually happens when your server does not have the correct rewrite rules to show the sitemaps using the normal permalinks. On examining the redirect, we see that you use an NGINX server. To resolve, please follow the instructions here – https://yoast.com/help/xml-sitemaps-nginx/

You may not be able to edit the server configuration files. We suggest that you reach out to your web hosting provider for further assistance.

Yeah… but my web hosting provider insists that the sitemap file is missing, and they don’t see any other issue.

Is it bad to only have that non-pretty permalink, and not the pretty one?

What about if I use the non-pretty permalink as sitemap in Google Search Console?

Thanks again, and regards.

Hello,

By default, our plugin generates sitemaps dynamically when you enable the sitemap feature. This means the Yoast SEO generates sitemaps “on the fly” and there aren’t physical XML files.

The Yoast SEO XML sitemap URL uses a pretty permalink of example.com/sitemap_index.xml but, behind the scenes, this URL also has a non-pretty permalink version of example.com/?sitemap=1. If you can load and see the sitemap using the non-pretty permalink, your server is not setup to rewrite and, thus, you’ll need to add rewrite rules.

The good news is that the non-pretty permalink successfully loads so we know Yoast SEO is creating the sitemap for your site.

Furthermore, using this status checker, we see the redirect has a status X-Redirect-By: WordPress. It could mean another plugin is handling the redirect. Please review the plugin you are using for redirects to find and remove the sitemap_index.xml redirect to the homepage.

Please note that browsers cache redirects so you may need to clear your browser cache to confirm the redirect is removed. Not sure how? We’ve got a guide to help you here.

Hello again,

I’ve checked all my plugins but I’ve not found any which can cause that problem.

Even if something is redirecting the url, could that be fixed added the rules shown in this guide: https://yoast.com/help/xml-sitemaps-nginx/?

Hello,

Checking if another plugin is causing the redirect was by the way. The surest resolution approach is to add the appropriate rewrite rules for your NGINX server

Thanks!

Thank you very much.

I’m not disturbing you anymore. I’ll talk with my server provider.

Thanks again, and regards.

@dariohuertacontact You’re welcome and please let us know if there is anything else we can assist with.

We are going ahead and marking this issue as resolved due to inactivity. If you require any further assistance please create a new issue.