Hi everyone, I'm back after a long break! I’ve recently revived one of my old domains from 2022 https://www.drifthuntersunblocked.net and decided to host it on Google Sites for a test. I'm having a bit of a technical struggle with Google Search Console. When I try to submit my sitemap, I keep getting an "Invalid path" or "Could not fetch" error. I've tried: Submitting sitemap.xml Submitting the full URL But nothing seems to work. Has anyone here successfully managed to get a Google Sites sitemap indexed on a custom domain recently? I’d also appreciate it if you could take a quick look at the site https://www.drifthuntersunblocked.net and tell me if it loads correctly for you, or if the redirect from the non-www version is working fine on your end. Thanks in advance for the help!
The “Invalid Path” error usually means the sitemap URL isn’t in the expected format or doesn’t match your verified property in Google Search Console. Double-check that you’re submitting the correct sitemap path for your Google Sites custom domain, and verify the domain property and HTTPS version. Also, check whether the sitemap URL actually loads in a browser before resubmitting it.
I checked the site just now, and the load/redirect part is working: the home page loads, and the version without www redirects to the www version. So that is not the problem. The sitemap part is different. Both https://www.drifthuntersunblocked.net/sitemap.xml and https://www.drifthuntersunblocked.net/system/app/pages/sitemap.xml return a Google Sites 404 page for me, and robots.txt does too. That explains the Search Console errors: there is no sitemap file at the path you are submitting, so resubmitting the same path will keep failing with Invalid Path / Could not fetch. Before trying another variant, confirm which property you verified in Search Console. It needs to be the exact www HTTPS property, https://www.drifthuntersunblocked.net/, not a different property that points elsewhere, because the redirect sends everything to the www version anyway. If the property matches and those paths still 404, do not force a manual sitemap submission for this Google Sites setup; rely on the home page being crawlable and check what Search Console reports under Pages after a fresh inspection, rather than treating a missing sitemap file as a site outage. Which property type did you verify, the www URL-prefix property or a domain property?