How To Fix “Your Sitemap Appears To Be An HTML Page” Error After Adding A Sitemap To Google Search Console

Many people for long now have been complaining that whenever they try to submit or add their site/blog officially generated sitemap to Google Webmaster or Google Search Console as it is now called for easy crawling and ranking of their sites/blog on Google Search Engine Page, an error often appears under issues, which always keep them unease as they fear that their sites have not been added properly and that they would not be discoverable on Search Engine.

If you are currently facing such issue, one thing we would like to know is that you are not alone as this particular issue has been lingering for many years and as such lots of people have faced this same issue and even more are still currently facing it.

On why the error has been appearing for many years now without any instant fix is still beyond our comprehension, however, here is some cheering news as regards to the error; what you do see as an error anytime you add a rightful sitemap to your Google Search Console is not really an error per se, but it only displays as an error, without actually affecting your sitemap submission and the purpose.’

Normally, most sitemap generators generates an XML file extension of your site/blog, which is a valid and rightful sitemap, but you will notice that when you successfully add or submit the xml file extension sitemap to your Google Webmaster Tool, thereafter you will often see an error message under the issue menu and when you click on the error to know what they error is all about, you will often see a respond that reads;

“Your sitemap appears to be an HTML page. Please use a supported sitemap format instead”

At this point you might be thinking that you have done the wrong thing by submitting a wrong sitemap, but not too worry if that is exactly the case with you.

Must Read: The 5 major advantages of Search Engine traffic that you must know as a webmaster

Now, here is the fix, a simple and a self-fix for that matter; all you need to do at that moment when the error appears is to give it some break and virtually do nothing. Just go and come back in a couple of hours and should notice that the error has disappeared.

Though some few occasions, it might take some few days for the error to fix-self, but even if the error still displays for couple of hours and you are sure that you submitted the right sitemap, your sitemap will be submitted accordingly and Google bots would discover your site for proper crawling and ranking on Search Engine as long as you have not tempered with your robot text file in the manner that blocks your site/blog from Google bot access.