What to do when your Sitemap status is "Denied URLs"

11/01/2005 05:14:00 PM

Posted by Vanessa Fox

If your Sitemap status is "Denied URLs" and the error listed is "URL not under Sitemap path", here are some things to check.

Make sure the URL root matches
If you submit your Sitemap using the path http://example.com/sitemap.xml, then the URLs in your Sitemap should begin with example.com. Any URLs that begin with www.example.com aren't considered to be under the Sitemap path. Along those lines, if you Submit your Sitemap using the path http://www.example.com/sitemap.xml, the URLs in that Sitemap should begin with www.example.com.

To fix this problem, you can either edit the URLs listed in your Sitemap file to match the submitted path, or you can delete the Sitemap and then submit it again using the path that matches the URLs listed in it.

Make sure the Sitemap is at the highest-level directory
If you submit your Sitemap using the path http://www.example.com/sample_folder/sitemap.xml, then all URLs in that Sitemap must begin with that path. This means that http://www.example.com/sample.html wouldn't be considered a valid URL in the Sitemap.

If all possible, place your Sitemap at the root location of your site to avoid these types of problems. If you can't place the Sitemap at the root, then list only URLs from the Sitemap location and lower.

See the Sitemaps documentation for more details.