Sitemap problems after updating non existing pages still appear 
Author: Tom W.
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Hello,
I have a problem with sitemap in x12 pro.
I have changed my website from last year, some pages have been deleted and replaced by new ones. However, the sitemap created by x12 still lists pages that do not exist anymore and google crawls them as soft 404. I have also noticed that some files (e.g. a video file) that don't exist in any objects on my recent site are still uploaded to the server. I deleted all files on ftp and uploaded the whole website again and the problem still persists.
Have you come across something like that? Please help.
Tom.
Posted on the
Hello Tom,
With reference to the old files which are no longer needed, please follow the advice in this thread:
https://helpcenter.websitex5.com/post/129755
As regards the sitemap issue, please ensure that Google has the most up-to-date version of your sitemap by following the instructions given in this article under the heading entitled 'Resubmit your sitemap':
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/183669?hl=en
Kind regards,
Paul
Author
Hi Paul,
Ok. Old files upload sorted.
But sitemap thing still seems to be there. I update manually ALL versions of my website including with/without www. and https versions as recommended by google.
I still get 404s :(
Tom.
Can you please post the domain name of the site in question, along with a handful of sample pages (URLs) which result in 404 errors?
Many thanks...
Author
OK. So I upload sitemap to google manually (see attached) and I get crawl errors (also attached) and google only indexes 8 sites as a result. Please have a look and tell me what I'm doing wrong because it's probably my messing things up
Author
Cant upload csv's but the screenshot should give you an idea and you can check out live sitemap.
Thanks for all the help.
Tom.
I would like to help further Tom but I will need additional information about the crawl errors... i.e. which pages in particular are returning 404 errors? Can you reproduce the URLs here for me please?
Everything else looks pretty normal from the screenshot. Google often is very selective about what it chooses to include in its index.
Author
Hi,
I have attached the errors (screenshot).
The thing is they are not included on my site anymore but Google still keeps indexing them and in fact does not index the sites it should (which are important). I've looked at the sitemap file and none of these appear there but still the problem persists.
Can you please have a look and tell me what you think the problem might be?
Thank you.
Tom.
Did you rename these pages without redirecting the old versions to the new using a 301 redirect? If so then this will be the cause of these errors.
Please study the following article for a fuller understanding of how such errors arise, and the steps you can take to rectify the situation:
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2409439?hl=en
You can also use the information in this article to remove outdated information from Google:
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/1663691?hl=en
You may want to consider setting up a dedicated 404 error page, and redirecting any deleted/non-existent pages to that error page:
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/181708
Rest assured that these 404 errors are not a major issue, contrary to what you might imagine. The URLs in question will drop out of Google's search results through time. The most important thing is that your sitemap.xml file is correct, which indeed it appears to be, with no dead links.
Best wishes...