Google Web Stories

Hi,

We understand Web Stories is not working correctly. We are happy to help! We can see there are two different issues. We have responded to each below.

A. When I check it on the test Amp page: https://search.google.com/test/amp, I get ‘Page cannot be reached’.
This is likely unrelated to Yoast, as Yoast does not generate the AMP pages. If you were to briefly deactivate the Yoast plugin (doing so will not hurt the SEO of the site) and try it on the AMP page, does the issue still happen?

If so, we suggest contacting the AMP plugin author to make sure the AMP page is correct.

B.When I check Google Search Console I see that for the ‘/web-story-sitemap.xml’ I get Sitemap could not be read or couldn’t fetch (although it displayed correctly).
Yoast does output a web stories sitemap. We suggest the following actions:

1. Clear all your caching from your theme, plugin, server, CDN like CloudFlare or browser. If you are not sure how to clear caching from theme/plugin please speak to those authors. If you want to clear cache from the server, please speak to your host provider. To clear the cache from a browser use this guide:?https://yoast.com/help/how-to-clear-my-browsers-cache/.

2. Delete your sitemap in Google. Doing so will not hurt the SEO of the site. This guide explains more (scroll to the bottom):?https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/183669?hl=en.

3. Submit the sitemap again. Be sure to submit only sitemap_index.xml and nothing else.?This guide explains more:?https://yoast.com/help/submit-sitemap-search-engines/.

4. Monitor the results to see if the issue resolves.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by Pcosta88.

Hi @pcosta88,

ok now everything seems to work, Amp test ok and views the web story.

Resubmitted but still only for the web-story-sitemap.xml within the sitemap_index.xml, I get ‘couldn’t fetch’ -> Sitemap could not be read.

Hi,

Do the rest of your sitemaps under the main sitemap index not get any errors, and you’re only getting an error for your web-story-sitemap.xml? Are there any more details or error messages from GSC aside from ‘sitemap could not be read/couldn’t fetch’?

But if you access the web-story-sitemap directly, is it also just loading as expected?

Hi @mikes41720,

Yes to all.

Only the web-story-sitemap.xml gets a Couldn’t fetch error.

The detailed error is “Sitemap could not be read” – “General HTTP error”:

“We encountered an error while trying to access your Sitemap. Please ensure your Sitemap follows our guidelines and can be accessed at the location you provided and then resubmit.”.

The sitemap link itself loads just fine.

What can be the problem?

By the way, after the latest update of Yoast, the story is now not valid on the Amp page checker:
https://search.google.com/test/amp

I get this now:
https://ibb.co/GCn19ts

Not sure if it’s related but I haven’t changed anything but the Yoast update…

@ilan76 Thanks for your reply. Regarding the web-story-sitemap.xml, would you be able to provide a link to the sitemap so that we can review it for any issue?

As for the errors you are receiving on the AMP test, this appear to be related to certain Twitter metadata that is being output. However, the metadata in question does not appear to be output by the Yoast SEO plugin. Have you tried disabling the Yoast SEO plugin to see whether those particular meta tags are still output?

Hi @devnihil,

It’s now updated and ‘Sitemap processed successfully’ on search console, so it took some time maybe.

But the issue of the Amp page test remains ever since I updated the Yoast plugin.
The Twitter card meta data is enabled by default and I didn’t changed anything in the settings…

It showed the story perfectly fine before updating the plugin.

Amp validator shows errors for Twitter attributes:

“The attribute ‘value’ may not appear in tag ‘meta’.”

• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by ilan76.

@ilan76 We understand that you are experiencing an issue with your site’s pages and AMP validation after updating to the 15.2 version of Yoast SEO.

To resolve this, can you please performing the following step?

? In WordPress, go to?SEO>General
? Click on the ‘Features’?tab
? Toggle?‘Enhanced Slack sharing’?to?‘Off’
? Click?‘Save changes’

Can you please try the aforementioned suggestions and let us know whether this resolves your issue?

Yes it does.

Thanks