Google xml Sitemaps REJECTED
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I’m getting this error message from Google Webmaster Tools every time I try to submit a sitemap
http://theoccupybank.com/sitemap.xml for http://theoccupybank.wordpress.com :Sitemap is HTML
Your Sitemap appears to be an HTML page. Please use a supported sitemap format instead.We are forwarding http://theoccupybank.com to http://theoccupybank.wordpress.com and are submitting the sitemap from theoccupybank.com in exactly the same way we do for our other similar sites like http://MarketingMachismo.com which actually explains how to use a WordPress.com blog to build a website.
None of this forwarding should affect the sitemap configuration.
PLEASE HELP!!! Many thanks!
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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Oh, wait, you are forwarding. You have to submit the wordpress.COM URL then, which would be http://theoccupybank.wordpress.com/sitemap.xml.
This sitemap, http://theoccupybank.com/sitemap.xml , which is NOT the sitemap associated with your blog, is HTML, not XHTML, which is why you are getting the error.
What should be done in cases like this to have everything work cleanly and to not confuse or confound the search engines is to map the domain name to the site here. Forwarding in my experience can be fickle.
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Thanks for your comments. They didn’t solve the problem.
FYI Google’s Webmaster Tools procedures do NOT allow you to put http://theoccupybank.wordpress.com/sitemap.xml in as the sitemap location. The field is prefilled with http://theoccupybank.com/ as the prefix
You say that http://theoccupybank.com/sitemap.xml is NOT the sitemap associated with our blog? They sure look exactly alike to me.
Yes, domain mapping is a much cleaner approach but I don’t know of a way to do it with the free WordPress.com sites. Can you explain how to do it?
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Does this help?
Domain Mapping » Map an Existing Domain > Instructions for Mapping an Existing Domain -
WordPress.com xml sitemaps do not have the requisite code lines indicating they are in xml format, that is why they are being rejected by Google Webmaster Tools.
WordPress.com needs to add the lines of code indicating the sitemap is in xml format.
Am I correct that the Domain Mapping function only works for PAID accounts, or if you try to do it, you will have to pay to make it work?
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Am I correct that the Domain Mapping function only works for PAID accounts, or if you try to do it, you will have to pay to make it work?
Yes. I paid for domain mapping upgrades for both of my blogs.
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WordPress sitemaps here are fully compliant with Google. There are literally 30 million blogs here with that exact format of sitemap and Google recognizes them all, and when you view the two sitemaps, they are NOT the same.
Your URL of your site is NOT http://theoccupybank.com/ , it is http://theoccupybank.wordpress.com/ . The other domain name is just FORWARDED to it.
Google will never accept a sitemap on the domain being forwarded. It will only accept a sitemap on the destination. You have to set the main URL for your site for Google webmaster tools to http://theoccupybank.wordpress.com/ , not to http://theoccupybank.com/ .
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Seriously, the only way to do this and do it right is to domain map your URL to the site here using the links that timethief and I have provided.
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WRONG!!! Google is very specific as to what they want to see in a sitemap:
https://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=183668&topic=8476&ctx=topic
Specifically, they want to see the XML identifier in the header
Your Sitemap file must specify the following XML namespace: xmlns=”http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9″.
Like this:
<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″?>
<urlset xmlns=”http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9″
xmlns:image=”http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap-image/1.1″
xmlns:video=”http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap-video/1.1″>
<url>
<loc>http://www.example.com/foo.html</loc>WordPress.com does NOT supply the xml identifier in their sitemap headers and does NOT specify the encoding as per this example too:
<!– generator=”wordpress.com” –><urlset xsi:schemaLocation=”http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9 http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9/sitemap.xsd”><url><loc>http://marketingmachismo.wordpress.com/2010/06/01/be-found-google-wisdom/</loc><lastmod>2012-01-05T00:52:47+00:00</lastmod>
Which is why I am getting this error:
Sitemap is HTML
Your Sitemap appears to be an HTML page. Please use a supported sitemap format instead.WordPress.com appears to be forcing people to the PAID option in order to get sitemaps that are acceptable to Google.
WordPress simply needs to add the xml specifiers as per Google’s instructions.
WordPress seems to have a gang of operatives assigned to trying to push people to the paid options.
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You are both trying to push people to the PAID option when the WordPress.com simply fails to include the xml specifiers they clearly require in the Webmaster Tools help section.
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Then talk with staff. Google and the other search engines have never rejected any of my sitemaps from here at wordpress.COM.
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I have both paid domain mapping and plain sites on WordPress.COM and the site maps work just fine on all the sites
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I just verified three of my test blogs here with Google webmaster tools (they were verified immediately) and then submitted the wordpress.com generated sitemaps for each and they were all accepted and downloaded by Google instantly with zero errors.
Sitemap errors and warnings
No errors or warnings found. -
One last thing if you have only forwarded the traffic from theoccupybank.com, and not mapped it to your site here, then this is the site URL that you must submit to and verify with google:
http://theoccupybank.wordpress.com/After the verification then you submit this sitemap:
http://theoccupybank.wordpress.com/sitemap.xml -
NO! ABSOLUTELY UNTRUE. I think you are blowing smoke.
I just tried it and had exactly the same error.
I just changed my verification meta tag in Google Webmaster Tools from mydomain.com to mydomain.wordpress.com (it verified successfully) and tried to submit a sitemap and got EXACTLY THE SAME ERROR.
I agree, the problem is WordPress.com is not putting the correct xml identifiers in the sitemap headers.
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I just verified three of my test blogs here with Google webmaster tools (they were verified immediately) and then submitted the wordpress.com generated sitemaps for each and they were all accepted and downloaded by Google instantly with zero errors.
Sitemap errors and warnings
No errors or warnings found. -
@marketingmachismo
My experience is identical to what thesacredpath has stated.Sitemap errors and warnings
No errors or warnings found.
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