Sitemap XML is not being updated for 4 months
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Hello,
I’ve noticed that my sitemap.xml hasn’t been updated since the end of March, even though I’ve made changes since then—especially to my meta data. However, these changes aren’t appearing correctly on Google. I’ve tried toggling the sitemap setting on and off, but that didn’t help.
I also manually submitted pages for indexing via Google Search Console, but my meta data still isn’t updating on Google, and my sitemap never refreshes.
Could someone help me with this?
The page I need help with: [log in to see the link]
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Hi @paul1494 ,
Thanks for reaching out. I understand that your sitemap_index file is not updating in a timely manner, even though you’ve already made so</span>me changes. I can see how this might give you some uncertainty. Let’s get down to the bottom of what’s going on here.
The Yoast plugins create sitemaps on the fly. This means sitemaps are updated automatically when you add, edit, or delete content. Therefore, there is no need to generate or rebuild the sitemaps in most cases. However, if you have modified content or added developer filters, you may need to force an update.
Sometimes, the cache functionality on your site prevents the sitemaps from updating automatically. The cache can be handled through a lot of methods so you may not have intentionally added a cache feature, but it’s there nonetheless.
Can you please try to do the following:
- Disable the XML sitemap functionality under Yoast SEO > Settings > General > Site Features. Under “Technical SEO”, in the XML sitemaps, turn off, then save the changes.
- Clear your cache from your caching plugins, server, CDN like Cloudflare, or your browser. If you are not sure how to clear the cache from your caching plugin, please contact the plugin developer. If you’d like to clear the cache from your server, please speak to your host provider.
- Enable your XML sitemap again.
Now, to check whether Yoast SEO is outputting your updated meta data correctly:
- Visit the updated page on your website.
- Right-click on the page and select View Page Source (or press
Ctrl + U/Cmd + Option + U). - Search (
Ctrl + F/Cmd + F) for<meta name="description".
If the text inside the
content=""tag matches what you entered in the Yoast SEO metabox, then our plugin is working properly and serving the updated data to search engine crawlers.If your source code is correct but Google is still showing something different, please keep in mind that Google ultimately decides what title and meta description to display in search results. Google frequently rewrites snippets or pulls text directly from your page content if its automated systems believe it better matches a user’s search query.
You can read more about how this works in Google’s official documentation on title and snippet generation.
Hello Angel,
Thank you for your feedback. I’ve followed your advice, and I’ll see if it works.
I’ve noticed that my modification dates are not up to date. Is that normal? (You can see this by checking the sitemap link)
However, when I checked all my pages, the
<meta name="description">tag is correct on every one of them.I’ll resubmit the sitemap for indexing in Google Search Console and manually index all my pages to see if that changes anything in Google search results.
I’ll keep you updated in the coming days.
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