: Google Webmaster tools URLs blocked by empty Sitemap I am trying to update a Sitemap to show support for multiple languages via hreflang tags. After adding the new Sitemap Google Webmaster Tools

Posted in: #GoogleSearchConsole #Hreflang #Sitemap

I am trying to update a Sitemap to show support for multiple languages via hreflang tags.

After adding the new Sitemap Google Webmaster Tools continues to display the Sitemap warning even after testing with specific Allow rules and even an empty Sitemap:

Sitemap contains urls which are blocked by robots.txt.

I have waited more than 48 hours as suggested in other posts but the warnings remain. Note that there are no noindex meta tags present.

Please see the robots.txt and sitemap.xml below. Webmaster tools states Your site has no hreflang tags. under International Targeting which is the major concern but I need to rule out the Sitemap warnings being related. Any help would be much appreciated.

robots.txt

User-agent: *
Disallow:
Sitemap: app.mysite.com/sitemap.xml

sitemap.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9"
xmlns:xhtml="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<url>
<loc>https://app.mysite.com/en/</loc>
<xhtml:link rel="alternate" hreflang="de-ch" href="https://app.mysite.com/de-CH/"/>
<xhtml:link rel="alternate" hreflang="fr-ch" href="https://app.mysite.com/fr-CH/"/>
<xhtml:link rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href="https://app.mysite.com/en/"/>
</url>

<url>
<loc>https://app.mysite.com/de-CH/</loc>
<xhtml:link rel="alternate" hreflang="fr-ch" href="https://app.mysite.com/fr-CH/"/>
<xhtml:link rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href="https://app.mysite.com/en/"/>
<xhtml:link rel="alternate" hreflang="de-ch" href="https://app.mysite.com/de-CH/"/>
</url>

<url>
<loc>https://app.mysite.com/fr-CH/</loc>
<xhtml:link rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href="https://app.mysite.com/en/"/>
<xhtml:link rel="alternate" hreflang="de-ch" href="https://app.mysite.com/de-CH/"/>
<xhtml:link rel="alternate" hreflang="fr-ch" href="https://app.mysite.com/fr-CH/"/>
</url>

<url>
<loc>https://app.mysite.com/en/contact-us</loc>
<xhtml:link rel="alternate" hreflang="de-ch" href="https://app.mysite.com/de-CH/contact-us"/>
<xhtml:link rel="alternate" hreflang="fr-ch" href="https://app.mysite.com/fr-CH/contact-us"/>
<xhtml:link rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href="https://app.mysite.com/en/contact-us"/>
</url>

<url>
<loc>https://app.mysite.com/de-CH/contact-us</loc>
<xhtml:link rel="alternate" hreflang="fr-ch" href="https://app.mysite.com/fr-CH/contact-us"/>
<xhtml:link rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href="https://app.mysite.com/en/contact-us"/>
<xhtml:link rel="alternate" hreflang="de-ch" href="https://app.mysite.com/de-CH/contact-us"/>
</url>

<url>
<loc>https://app.mysite.com/fr-CH/contact-us</loc>
<xhtml:link rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href="https://app.mysite.com/en/contact-us"/>
<xhtml:link rel="alternate" hreflang="de-ch" href="https://app.mysite.com/de-CH/contact-us"/>
<xhtml:link rel="alternate" hreflang="fr-ch" href="https://app.mysite.com/fr-CH/contact-us"/>
</url>