Recently I had a problem occurring which really annoyed me. I used Yoast SEO plugin on several websites and used the plugin to create my sitemaps. It worked perfectly on a lot of sites, but then suddenly I got the error message “Your Sitemap is HTML.”
I then saved the Sitemap settings in the Yoast SEO plugin and resubmitted it, but nothing helped. Even more annoying was the fact that as I visited the Sitemap itself using the link from the Google Webmasters tool it worked perfectly, but still – Google Webmasters tool did not want to accept my perfect and beautifully working sitemap. Do you have a similar problem?
How I got rid of “Your Sitemap is HTML”
There are several things that can be done to fix this, but in this article I will simply share what was the error in my case and what I did to get rid of the “Your Sitemap is HTML” error. As you might know it is smart to use a cache plugin on your WordPress site, to make sure that the data is sent on to the viewers as soon as possible. I used a plugin named Quick Cache and that was what caused the problems for me. I therefore deactivated the Quick Cache plugin and then I went to the SEO settings and the Sitemap settings and saved them again. Now I entered Google Webmasters tool and resubmitted my sitemap. And guess what, no more error message, just the fact that it was working and everything perfect. And, since it worked, I activated the Quick Cache plugin again and now it is all just fine.
That was the solution for me. Maybe it will work for you, or maybe it will not, but at least it is worth a try if you have a cache plugin that might cause you some problems and make Webmaster Tools not accept your sitemap.
