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I'm having a lot of trouble getting google search console to work with my wordpress website. I'm hosting the website myself on VPS.
Everytime i try to insert xml sitemap i get

General HTTP error: Domain name not found.

These are my DNS records:

@   IN  A   109.235.71.113  
www IN  A   109.235.71.113  

This is my htaccess:

 # BEGIN WordPress  
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>  
RewriteEngine On  
RewriteBase /  
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]  
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f  
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d  
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]  
</IfModule>

 # END WordPress

Robots.txt is alsa practically empty:

User-agent: *  
Disallow: /wp-admin/

When i try to add sitemap to search console, it throws out this error:
error
The error is basically the title, with description saying something along lines:

"Error while trying to acces Sitemap file. Please check if Sitemap, is as we want and is openable in it's place. You can send the request after.".

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  • Check if your website is reachable by tools.pingdom.com/fpt in order to assure your local DNS settings for your domain are valid and your domain is accessible.
    – Vasikos
    Feb 28, 2016 at 21:08
  • I'm able to reach website though website you provided.
    – Filip Wu
    Feb 28, 2016 at 21:18

1 Answer 1

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If your Domain URL already resolves to your local server and is accessible by everyone first remove it completely from Google Webmaster Tools and then re-submit it.

While submiting your Domain, make sure to put www. in begining of the domain because your local server probably does not have your domain set by default properly to work without www. subdomain. (Try also the vice-versa scenario in case it still does not work)

After you re-submit it and complete successfully the verification process, create your XML Sitemap file using an online XML Sitemap generator (like XML-Sitemaps.com), replace your current XML Sitemap file and re-submit it through Google Webmaster Tools.


Note: Before everything, make sure that you can access your XML Sitemap file through your browser, for example check if you can see http://www.yourdomain.com/yoursitemap.xml

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  • Does deleting property and then reapply-ing it counts? Because when i try to do so it verifies itself by previous type.
    – Filip Wu
    Feb 29, 2016 at 8:36
  • It verified itself because you already had the google verification file in your website's folder. Please let us know if the above described steps were followed and helped with your issue.
    – Vasikos
    Feb 29, 2016 at 8:41
  • Kosmas@OP using wordpress and there are many of plugins like Google sitemap, yoast, which can generate sitemap automatically, so no need to use third party website. Flip@Can you try to use fetch as Google tools from Google Webmaster Tools, and post out result here. And are you sure your sitemap URL is valid? Did you get your sitemap, when you open www.yourdomain.com/sitemap/ ?
    – Goyllo
    Feb 29, 2016 at 9:32
  • I'm using yoast, but i tried switching back and forth between plugins to se if some worked and none did. Before i had no problems accessing sitemap but now i get on my website without seeing the sitemap itself, which was not the case before. Also, when i tried to send sitemaps onto google this morning, it spit out another error. Now, when i try it it just goes though, even though it submits only 7 pages. Is that normal for website this site? link
    – Filip Wu
    Feb 29, 2016 at 9:44
  • Also it's worth noting that sitemaps generated by plugins on wordpress like yoast and SEOs were not taken, the sitemap i generated though third party website went though and is also viewable though browser.
    – Filip Wu
    Feb 29, 2016 at 9:52

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