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[Finally!] Couldn’t Fetch Sitemap error On Google Search Console Solved

If you have been hit by the annoying Google search console bug where your sitemaps are not fetched, I finally found a solution that works 50% of the time.

[Update: This solution has been reported to not work for some users. If it does not work for you do comment below. If this did work for you or you found another solution, comment below and let others know! ]

This issue drove me nuts for almost 20 days now and I couldn’t find a solution to the issue literally anywhere on the web.

The big surprise is that a large number of users are affected by this issue. Even though:

  1. You have a valid sitemap
  2. There are no errors on your chrome console
  3. Curl command gives status 200

Google just wouldn’t fetch it. Nada.

Without keeping you waiting, here’s the solution and I just stumbled upon it while trying to index our 8 new websites, so you can imagine the pressure our team was in for 20 days!

Here’s How to Fix The Couldn’t Fetch Google Search Console Error

  1. Login To Google Search Console
  2. Click on “Sitemaps” on the left panel/Menu
  3. On add a sitemap, enter URL of the sitemap you are trying to index
  4. Add a Forward slash “/” just after the last forward slash in the URL (See Screenshot)
  5. Click on Submit
  6. If you still get an error, repeat without the extra forward slash
Fixing "Couldn't Fetch@ search Console Error screenshot
Screenshot 1

This should do it. It worked on all of the 8 websites. Don’t worry, even with the extra forward slash, Google search console will index the right URL!

Fixing "Couldn't Fetch@ search Console Error
Screenshot 2

Other Submitted Solutions That Worked

I had the website verified in console as http:// yet the live website had an https:// and this means the the sitemaps had https://.

I deleted the http:// property and added it again as https:// and the sitemaps issue was fixed. I was using Yoast to generate the sitemaps.

Caleb

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Did it work for you? Let me know down in the comments!

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