Troubleshooting Google Search Console: The Mysterious “Couldn’t Fetch” Error
When managing a client’s website, one of the most perplexing issues I’ve encountered recently is the recurring “Couldn’t fetch” message in Google Search Console. This particular case has arisen when reviewing the client’s sitemap, which has not reported any crawls since September of last year. Upon re-submitting the sitemap, aptly named /sitemaps.xml, I still faced the same baffling error.
What makes this situation even more intriguing is that the specific URL I resubmitted is the same one that was previously crawled without issues. The fact that there have been no updates since last September suggests that the underlying problem may be more entrenched rather than a simple transient glitch.
Upon further inspection, I verified that the sitemap is accessible via the provided URL and that I can navigate to each individual page listed in the sitemap. This observation indicates that the page settings are not marked as NOINDEX, which is a positive sign.
The client is currently utilizing SEOPress, which offers a straightforward toggle for sitemap functionality. The sitemap is functioning correctly and includes a comprehensive list of 32 pages, segmented into both post and page sub-maps. However, when I attempted to submit just the page sitemap using /page-sitemap1.xml, I encountered the same frustrating error.
This is a new experience for me, as I have not previously encountered this specific “Couldn’t fetch” message. If anyone has insights or suggestions on potential solutions to this issue, I would greatly appreciate your input. It’s been a few hours since my last submission, and even after refreshing the Google Search Console, there has been no change in status. Re-submitting the primary sitemap continues to yield the same error, leading me to believe that this is not a temporary glitch but a more persistent issue.
If you have faced a similar situation or have expertise in resolving issues with Google Search Console, your advice would be invaluable. Thank you for your help!