Why Search Console says a sitemap couldn't be fetched, and how to fix it

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Google's Sitemaps report shows "Couldn't fetch" when it failed to retrieve a sitemap file, which may mean it simply hasn't read the file yet or that the server returned an error, redirect, or HTML page. Running a live test in Search Console can reveal which situation applies within a couple of minutes. Google's help documentation defines this status separately from "Has errors," where the file was read but contained problems. Google's John Mueller has cited host load and low crawl demand, often tied to perceived site quality, as reasons a valid sitemap may still go unfetched. When the live test fails, common causes include a wrong URL, redirects, robots.txt rules, server failures, an open manual action, or WordPress hiding its sitemap, and security layers or caches may also serve a non-XML page instead.

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