AIOSEO Sitemap.xml conflicts with WPML plugin

Resolved ikulagin
(@ikulagin)

2 years, 8 months ago
Hi dear developer,
after the update of AIOSEO plugin sitemap.xml stopped working. We have a WPML plugin installed on our website and before update 2 sitemap.xml files were working correctly:
1. First for the main version of the website – https://hos247.com/sitemap.xml
2. Second is for our Canada version – https://hos247.com/canada/sitemap.xml

All Canada pages have prefixes https://hos247.com/canada/ like:
1. US – https://hos247.com/eld/
2. Canada – https://hos247.com/canada/eld/

Before the update each sitemap file showed its corresponding pages. But after the update the files are not working anymore. I believe that something is wrong in its syntax https://prnt.sc/xjudh9 (code source) .

Please take a look and if possible correct the errors as soon as possible as it might really negatively effect all SEO positions.

Thanks a lot,
Illia
- This topic was modified 2 years, 8 months ago by ikulagin.
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Viewing 12 replies - 1 through 12 (of 12 total)

Plugin Author Arnaud Broes
(@arnaudbroes)

2 years, 8 months ago

Hey @ikulagin,

I believe that’s intended behaviour. We’ve added support to include localized versions of your posts in every sitemap. So the Canadian one would list the US ones as well, and vice versa. You can read more about that here – https://developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/crawling/localized-versions

I don’t think the language code should be “canada” though but “en_CA” instead so I’m opening a ticket for that so we can follow up on this.

– Arnaud

Thread Starter ikulagin
(@ikulagin)

2 years, 8 months ago

Hi @arnaudbroes,

yes, now I see that in the sitemap.xml a wrong language code “canada” is used – https://prnt.sc/xnily6 , it might be taken from a wrong place as on the page code I configured the language code correctly – https://prnt.sc/xnipkt .

I checked my configuration and see that hreflang instead Code should be used for the sitemap.xml file – https://prnt.sc/xnj0q4 as this code is used in the page source. Now a custom code “canada” is used https://prnt.sc/xnj4i0 that might break the sitemap.xml file. I created a custom language for English in Canada and called the code “canada” as it’s used to construct a URL of the page.

ILLIA

Plugin Author Arnaud Broes
(@arnaudbroes)

2 years, 8 months ago

Hey Illia,

That’s useful information to know. That also makes me believe we’re taking the language code from the wrong option. We’ll try to look into this ASAP.

– Arnaud

Thread Starter ikulagin
(@ikulagin)

2 years, 8 months ago

Hi Arnaud,

please let me know when the new update will be available for download? As I see in the changelog that there’re 2 updates already https://prnt.sc/y06u9k and in one of them you mention Sitemap.

Thanks a lot,
Illia

Plugin Author Arnaud Broes
(@arnaudbroes)

2 years, 8 months ago

Hey Illia,

The update is going out today. I don’t think we’ve fixed the issue you’re experiencing yet. If you’d like to speed things up, you can contact us here – https://aioseo.com/contact/. You can click the “Submit a Form” button and ask for me specifically. If I can get eyes on how you’ve set up WPML, I can make sure that we fix this in the next version and send you a beta build in the meanwhile.

– Arnaud

Thread Starter ikulagin
(@ikulagin)

2 years, 8 months ago

Hi Arnaud,

thanks a lot, I will contact you shortly.

Illia
morissaflo
(@morissaflo)

2 years, 7 months ago
Thank you @ikulagin for open a topic.

I can confirm that there is a problem with sitemap.xml when using WMPL. My case is little different but it could be caused by same problem.

Imagine I have a page (original EN language):
http://website.com/Hello-World/
and translated German version of this page:
http://website.com/de/Hallo-Welt/

BUT in sitemap.xml I see:
```
<loc language="en"><![CDATA[http://website.com/Hello-World/]]></loc>
<xhtml:link rel="alternate" hreflang="de" href="http://website.com/de/Hello-World" />
```
It just adds/changes language prefix but not a link itself.
(“Hello-World” is not changes to “Hallo-Welt”)
I tried dynamic sitemap, static sitemap and all available options in plugin settings. The problem is still there.

Please make update for compatibility with WPML.

Much thanks in advance.
- This reply was modified 2 years, 7 months ago by morissaflo.
- This reply was modified 2 years, 7 months ago by morissaflo.
morissaflo
(@morissaflo)

2 years, 7 months ago

Unfortunately 4.0.15 update did not resolve this problem.

Plugin Author Arnaud Broes
(@arnaudbroes)

2 years, 7 months ago

We’re looking into this for the next update!

– Arnaud

Plugin Author Arnaud Broes
(@arnaudbroes)

2 years, 7 months ago

@morissaflo we’ve got a fix for this. If you’d like to get a beta version, please feel free to reach out to us here – https://aioseo.com/contact/. You can click the “Submit a Form” button on that page.

– Arnaud

morissaflo
(@morissaflo)

2 years, 7 months ago

Hello @arnaudbroes,
Many thanks for fast support. I checked fix and can confirm that in beta version my problem is solved.
Thread Starter ikulagin
(@ikulagin)

2 years, 6 months ago
The issue is not fully resolved. The sitemap.xml is accessible now, however it doesn’t work properly.

I’ve got 2 sitemaps for US and Canadian version of the website:
1. hos247.com/sitemap.xml
2. hos247.com/canada/sitemap.xml

Both versions are in the English language, only location is different. WPML plugin is configured and shows alternate versions correctly – https://prnt.sc/10sbvz8 .

Things that need to be corrected in the AIOSEO Sitemap.xml:
1. https://prnt.sc/yoikvl – on Category pages (problem on both US and Canada sitemaps) there’s no indication of the language code, but in the category pages’ source code language is indicated and it would be great to add it here too – https://prnt.sc/yoim0v . At the same time there’re some custom pages with no language code in the source, we don’t indicate it here and it’s good – https://prnt.sc/yoimmo .

So with the US sitemap everything else is OK, but there’re some issues specifically with the Canadian sitemap:

1. https://prnt.sc/yoid7q – wrong language code “en” is used for Canadian posts and they don’t show the US alternate version when on the US sitemap you show it correctly https://prnt.sc/yoiijx . https://prnt.sc/yoiocd – we use the correct code for Pages, but we indicate the wrong “en” language code for all the articles and for the Homepage – https://prnt.sc/yoiq2z and we also should indicate alternate ‘en’ versions for them as we do for the pages.

2. On Canadian sitemap there’s no point to show any US pages (pages that have only US version – https://prnt.sc/yoiw7e ) as we duplicate info from the US sitemap – https://prnt.sc/yoiue6 , https://prnt.sc/yoiv3w and https://prnt.sc/yoivda . So we should not show any US Pages, Posts and Categories as they are already being shown on the US sitemap. In such a way in Google Search Console I will see a different amount of pages in the US and Canada sitemaps, I will see the actual amount of the Canadian pages.`
- This reply was modified 2 years, 6 months ago by ikulagin.