Unsupported file format of sitemap - Google

Question

I'm having an issue where I'm submitting my sitemap, too bad I keep this omitted error:

Unsupported file format

Your Sitemap does not appear to be in a supported format. Please ensure it meets our Sitemap guidelines and resubmit.

I followed the sitemap guidelines and error reporting types:

• Creating Sitemaps.
• Sitemap errors.

This is what my sitemap looks like:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
  <url>
    <loc>http://mywebsite.com/home</loc>
    <changefreq>weekly</changefreq>
    <priority>0.2</priority>
  </url>
  <url>
    <loc>http://mywebsite.com/feedback</loc>
    <changefreq>weekly</changefreq>
    <priority>0.2</priority>
  </url>
  <url>
    <loc>http://mywebsite.com/search</loc>
    <changefreq>weekly</changefreq>
    <priority>0.2</priority>
  </url>
</urlset>

It seems fine enough, so I re-submitted it and then it returned the same error, that my sitemap is unsupported.

The sitemap has a application header of text/xml if changed to application/xml, it still won't work. What is causing this error?

Answer 1

1. You can validate your sitemap here (if it is not too big): [1], [2], [3] or use any other tool.

2. I do not see the required <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> part here -- did you forgot to copy it .. or you do not have it at all? The first link you are referring to has it in the example.

3. Maybe it is worth adding FULL "header/definition" of the <urlset> -- I have it this way everywhere and never saw any rejections/validation issues:

Your sitemap.xml could be looking like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9 http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9/sitemap.xsd">
  <url>
    <loc>http://mywebsite.com/home</loc>
    <changefreq>weekly</changefreq>
    <priority>0.2</priority>
  </url>
  <url>
    <loc>http://mywebsite.com/feedback</loc>
    <changefreq>weekly</changefreq>
    <priority>0.2</priority>
  </url>
  <url>
    <loc>http://mywebsite.com/search</loc>
    <changefreq>weekly</changefreq>
    <priority>0.2</priority>
  </url>
</urlset>