Member Avatar for Jayse

Hi All.

I am new to Web Designing and trying to submit my first website to Googlebut I keep getting an Error and the message: Sitemap errors and warnings
Line Status Details
- Unsupported file format
Your Sitemap does not appear to be in a supported format. Please ensure it meets our Sitemap guidelines and resubmit. Help Problem detected on: Apr 20, 2009

I am using a Web Builder provided by my Web Host. What am I doing wrong and how do I correct this?

Thanks

Jayse

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by almostbob

Dani AI

Generated

The "Unsupported file format" message almost always means the submitted file is not a plain XML sitemap that follows the Sitemaps protocol, or the server is returning it with the wrong wrapper or MIME type. 's idea to generate a sitemap is useful, but many site builders output an HTML page or a download wrapper instead of raw XML. The official protocol and Google guidance are worth checking: Sitemaps protocol and Google Search Central — Sitemaps.

Quick practical checks and fixes:

  • Confirm the file is pure XML (no HTML tags, no CMS chrome) and begins with the XML prolog and the urlset namespace.
  • Verify the server response is 200 and the Content-Type header is text/xml or application/xml. Example diagnostics:
    curl -I https://example.com/sitemap.xml
curl -s https://example.com/sitemap.xml | sed -n '1,10p'
xmllint --noout sitemap.xml
  • Ensure UTF-8 encoding without a Byte Order Mark (BOM). Many editors can re-save as UTF-8, or use iconv to convert.
  • Use absolute URLs (https://domain/...) inside the sitemap. Do not wrap the sitemap in HTML, PHP notices, or login redirects.

Minimal valid sitemap example:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
  <url>
    <loc>https://example.com/</loc>
  </url>
</urlset>

Other tips: compressed sitemaps must be gzip (.xml.gz), not zip. Add a Sitemap: line to robots.txt if helpful. is correct that crawlers can find a site without a sitemap, but a valid sitemap speeds discovery for new or hard-to-reach pages. ’s pointer to the official tools is on target once the file validates and the server serves it correctly.

Recommended Answers

All 3 Replies

Member Avatar for Showcase

you have to upload to google in xml..dont worry, go to: www.xml-sitemaps.com and it does the job 4u

Member Avatar for MidiMagic

With a normal host, you don't have to do anything. Indexing is automatic when the following are present:

- The host does not prohibit robots from searching it.

- The home page is named according to the home page rule the host uses.

- Each page can be reached by following a link or a chain of links from the home page. (A page that is not linked to and is not the home page will not be found.)

My pages usually index within a day or two, depending on how long it takes for the robots traversing the entire internet to stumble upon it.

Member Avatar for almostbob

google webmaster tools

read the hints, from the people blamed for search engines
You need a sitemap submitted to google,
or inbound links from other sites
to speed up the googlebots index your site.
MidiMagic is correct, once you get googled, yahooed, and asked
re-indexing is quite quick

re: inbound links,
link exchange services have a negative effect, dondoit

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