Hi WA-ers!

I was having problems submitting my sitemap to Google Webmaster Tools and it drove me mad looking for answers on how to solve them so I thought I'd share my solution here if anyone were to come across the same problem.

Here's a list of possible problems affecting the sitemap...

1) Google XML Sitemaps Plugin has a "Dot" at the end.

• The sitemap URL for the Google XML Sitemaps plugin is “sitemap.xml.” Believe it or not, many people mistook the dot at the end of the URL as a full stop symbol. It's actually not a full stop.
  

2) Yoast uses a different sitemap URL

• Bear in mind that Yoast’s sitemap URL is “sitemap_index.xml” which is a bit different than that of the Google XML Sitemap plugin's which is “sitemap.xml.”
  

3) Your theme restrictions

• Some themes can be quite strict and a tad annoying (Like mine). Try to change themes temporarily and see if it works, or create a dummy website if you do not want to go through the trouble of re-arranging content after switching themes. One you've changed your theme and if works, you can simply switch back to the original one once it's taken care of.

4) Conflict between plugins

• Some plugins might alter another plugin's effect like how I experienced with my Contact Form plugin. If you have a lot of plugins running, try and deactivate one of them and see if it works.

5) Google accesses your sitemaps while they are still being generated

• New websites won’t have this problem because they are fresh and have no contents. But if your website is an old one with hundreds of links going on, the sitemap might take some time to generate. You should give it around 10-15 mins or so before you submit the sitemap again.
  

Let me know down below if you guys are having the same if not similar problems on this. We'll try to sort it out together.

Good luck!

-Riaz