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handyman_uk 0 Light Poster

Hi
i have a website (i wont psot specifics unless you ask)

i have 2 domain names both pointing to the same site

i made a sitemap and called it sitemap1.xml
the copied it altered the urls and named it sitemap2.xml

simples

i go to google webtools to submit my site maps
it excepts sitemap1 and the site is indexed and google is ok with it

but it dosnt like sitemap3 and tells me its an html file

it the same file with just one word changed in the url

dosnt matter what i do google dosnt like any sitmap for this site

anyone any ideas

a little sheepush shorn


P . S . if this is in the wrong thread sorry

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Dani AI

Generated

— when Google reports a sitemap "looks like HTML" it usually means the server returned an HTML page instead of a plain XML sitemap. Common, verifiable checks and fixes:

  • Confirm the file is served as XML and returns 200 OK. From a shell run:

    curl -I https://yourdomain.example/sitemap.xml

    Look for a Content-Type of application/xml or text/xml and a 200 status. If you see text/html or a 3xx/4xx, the sitemap URL is being redirected or replaced by an HTML error/home page.

  • Fetch the raw body and make sure the file begins with an XML declaration and the sitemap root element. If the response contains a full HTML page, fix the server rule that is rewriting or redirecting that path.

    curl https://yourdomain.example/sitemap.xml

  • Verify the sitemap is publicly accessible (no HTTP auth, no firewall blocking) and that you submitted it under the matching Search Console property (sitemaps must refer to the same host/domain as the URLs listed). See the official protocol and Google guidance for details: Sitemap protocol and Google Search Central: Sitemaps.

If those checks look correct but Search Console still flags the file, open the sitemap URL in a browser, check server logs for the exact response to Googlebot, and regenerate the sitemap from the canonical host before re-submitting. These steps resolve the vast majority of "sitemap is HTML" errors.

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