# Google Search Console can't read the sitemap

**URL:** <https://meta.discourse.org/t/google-search-console-cant-read-the-sitemap/359762>\
**Category:** Product Support\
**Tags:** sitemap, seo\
**Created:** [March 31, 2025, 11:51pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/google-search-console-cant-read-the-sitemap/359762 "2025-03-31T23:51:39Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 7

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**Author:** ![CamilleRoux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/camilleroux/32/119575_2.png) [@CamilleRoux](https://meta.discourse.org/u/CamilleRoux)\
**Post date:** [January 2, 2026, 4:56pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/google-search-console-cant-read-the-sitemap/359762/7 "2026-01-02T16:56:19Z")

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**Update**

I found the correct sitemap endpoint and it’s behaving normally for Googlebot:

- `https://forum.pragmaticentrepreneurs.com/sitemap.xml`

It’s a valid **sitemap index** and it references:

- `https://forum.pragmaticentrepreneurs.com/sitemap_recent.xml`
- `https://forum.pragmaticentrepreneurs.com/sitemap_1.xml`

### What I tested

- **Googlebot access** : `sitemap.xml`, `sitemap_recent.xml`, and `sitemap_1.xml` all return **HTTP/2 200** with a Googlebot user-agent, and the body is real XML (not an HTML challenge page).
- **Headers / content type** :
  - `sitemap.xml`: `Content-Type: application/xml; charset=utf-8`
  - `sitemap_recent.xml` + `sitemap_1.xml`: `Content-Type: text/xml; charset=utf-8`
  - Responses include `x-discourse-route: sitemap/*` and `x-discourse-crawler-view: true` (served by Discourse in crawler mode).

- **IPv4 + IPv6** : both return **200** on `sitemap.xml`.
- **Stability** : I fetched each sitemap **20 times in a row** with a Googlebot UA — no 403/429/5xx.
  - Typical response times were ~0.17–0.28s for `sitemap.xml`, ~0.19–0.60s for `sitemap_recent.xml`, and mostly ~0.45–0.99s for `sitemap_1.xml` (one slower response at ~2.9s, still **200** ).

- **robots.txt** : includes `Sitemap: https://forum.pragmaticentrepreneurs.com/sitemap.xml` and doesn’t block `/sitemap*.xml`.

### Search Console status

In Google Search Console, the sitemap index processing shows as **successful** , but only  
`https://forum.pragmaticentrepreneurs.com/sitemap_recent.xml` is currently listed/recognized under “Sitemaps read”.  
`sitemap_1.xml` is still **not** listed there.

### Where this leaves things

From the server side everything looks fine, so this feels like a Search Console-side lag or partial processing: Google is reading the index and at least one child sitemap, but hasn’t surfaced the second one yet in the UI.

 ![Capture d’écran 2026-01-02 à 17.56.03](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/meta/original/4X/1/c/a/1ca3d3c759b1a2960631e71a44ad9c39497da9f9.png)

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