[Plugin: WordPress SEO by Yoast] FIX for sitemap_index.xml 404 error

LOL – one more thing!
If you are running SuperCache and using a CDN (FYI I am using rackspace) this worked for me:

Add in the SuperCache settings page –>> CDN tab –>> to the “exclude if substring” setting –>> .xsl

Another thing if you’re running W3 Total Cache and your sitemap index just shows up as a white page, Deactivate W3TC and then reactivate it.

Seems to make that an easy fix thankfully!

Yes it seems to work, the sitemap is showing up but it’s still sending a 404 as the response header which means that Google Webmaster Tool won’t find it.

Any suggestions?

Yes, keep the modified .htaccess file and edit /wp-content/plugins/wordpress-seo/inc/class-sitemaps.php

replace init() function (line 80) with :

/**
	 * Initialize sitemaps. Add sitemap rewrite rules and query var
	 */
	function init() {
		global $wp_rewrite;
		$GLOBALS['wp']->add_query_var( 'sitemap' );
		$GLOBALS['wp']->add_query_var( 'sitemap_n' );
		add_rewrite_rule( 'sitemap_index\.xml$', 'index.php?sitemap=1', 'top' );
		add_rewrite_rule( '([^/]+?)-sitemap([0-9]+)?\.xml$', 'index.php?sitemap=$matches[1]&sitemap_n=$matches[2]', 'top' );
		$wp_rewrite->flush_rules();
	}

Regards

I actually just managed to fix this. The problem was a plugin that had flush_rewrite_rules(); after a custom post type. So when I removed it, it worked.

But thanks for the help anyway!

Can u give up the name of faulty plugin ?
It can help the developer ??

Regards

It was actually my own plugin, not a public one, don’t know why I added that, probably it was included in a tutorial i read when i created the custom post type way back when and can’t remember where I read it, sorry.

This has been frustrating me for ages, so thanks for finding a solution. I’ve adapted it for use with nginx, just add the following to the server block:

rewrite ^/sitemap_index\.xml$ /index.php?sitemap=1 last;
rewrite ^/([^/]+?)-sitemap([0-9]+)?\.xml$ /index.php?sitemap=$1&sitemap_n=$2 last;

FINALLY this is resolved for me. THANK YOU so much for fixing this!

Jonathan, thanks for the NGINX adaptation. I put this in the server block of our config and it works like a charm. What I don’t understand, however, is why this isn’t picked up when non-existent content is passed to index.php via

if (!-e $request_filename) { rewrite . /index.php last; }

Anyone have any insight?

Hmm, maybe something to do with fastcgi_intercept_errors?

Thanks hadjedj.vincent! The solution you provided worked for me.

I’m new to nginx and I’m a little thrown when you say to add the fix to the server block. I added it to my config file, but I got no results. Can you explain so a fifth grader can understand how to insert the fix.

PS: I’m not a fifth grader! Just need a simple step-by-step. lol…

Thanks!

Kredacter,

You should insert the code in the server block for the site you want it work on, in my case I have multiple sites on one server so use multiple config files in my sites-available folder. You may have a single site configured in your main nginx.conf.

So your server block should look something like this:

server {

	server_name  YourDomain.com;
	root   /var/www/YourDomain/public;

	#	Fix Yoast SEO Sitemaps
        rewrite ^/sitemap_index\.xml$ /index.php?sitemap=1 last;
	rewrite ^/([^/]+?)-sitemap([0-9]+)?\.xml$ /index.php?sitemap=$1&sitemap_n=$2 last;
}

Then you just need to tell nginx to re-read it’s config files. In Ubuntu use the command service nginx reload. Hope that helps.

Thanks Jonathan! I was able to get everything to work by making the change in my config file… But… ?? I updated to the latest version of the plugin 1.1.3 and added the news module. Now a new problem. I get a 404 error when I submit to Google Webmaster Tools. The news sitemap returns a “not found” from the plugin xml sitemap dashboard as well as GWT. Any thoughts? Is anybody else having this problem?