Issue: A sitemap.xml file with formatting errors can’t be read by search engines, which may cause them to ignore it entirely. This means they could miss important pages on your site, impacting your search visibility and indexing.

Fix: Use the Sitemaps report in Google Search Console to identify any issues in your sitemap.xml. Correct all errors, ensuring each tag and URL follows proper syntax. Reference Google’s guidelines for configuring a sitemap if needed.

Tip: A correctly formatted sitemap helps search engines efficiently find and index all your valuable pages.

More articles relating to Sitemaps:

• How to fix: Sitemap.xml files are too large
• How to fix: Incorrect pages found in sitemap.xml
• How to fix: Format errors in sitemap.xml files
• How to fix: Sitemap.xml not indicated in robots.txt
• How to fix: Sitemap.xml not found
• How to fix: HTTP URLs in sitemap.xml for HTTPS site
• How to fix: Orphaned pages (in sitemap)