Fix XML declaration allowed only at the start of the document Sitemap Error

Have you ever seen the Sitemap error “XML declaration allowed only at the start of the document?” The day before yesterday I was trying to check my sitemap which is created by Yoast SEO plugin. I found that the sitemap is missing and a sitemap error is coming quoted XML declaration allowed only at the start of the document.

Now the question comes is why this error is coming and how can we solve that? You very well know the importance of sitemap for a site. A sitemap is like a table of contents for Search Engine like Google.

A website sitemap tells a search engine about the latest changes and modifications performed on a website web pages. You can read about the process of creating a sitemap and importance of sitemap here.

How to create a Sitemap for a WordPress Website with pictures?

How to create an XML sitemap for a non-WordPress website?

From SEO perspective also a sitemap is very important. So, always keep your sitemap updated and free from any errors. To get better results and ranking in SERPs you have to submit your sitemap to Google Search console. If you do so, Google will discover, crawl and index your site.

Read Also – Google Fast indexing

Now let’s focus on solving the sitemap error “XML declaration allowed only at the start of the document.”

Why this “XML declaration allowed only at the start of the document” occurs?

There can be a lot of reasons but the main reason is unstructured data in the main code of the WordPress theme. Do you know why I have got the error? As I was editing the functions.php file and while edition I have misplaced some of the tags.

Generally, it is unwanted use of spaces in between the tags. The sitemap error “XML declaration allowed only at the start of the document” will look like this.

XML declaration allowed only at the start of the document
XML declaration allowed only at the start of the document error

So, now the question appears how this sitemap error can be fixed? Let’s have a look at this.

Fixing “XML declaration allowed only at the start of the document”

There are few things which you have to kept in mind. it will help you to fix this Sitemap problem easily.

  1. Make sure your PHP file doesn’t have any space prior the PHP tag
  2. If your website is new then you should reinstall your theme
  3. If your website is old then try replacing your core files code on by one. You can also check the code different from the main theme.
  4. You should reverse any changes made in the theme code, just to verify if the problem is resolved.
  5. Try deactivating plugins one by one to check if the problem still exists.
  6. Make sure you don’t have multiple plugins for sitemap creation
  7. Don’t add any extra declaration which is not required

I hope if you follow this then the problem “XML declaration allowed only at the start of the document” will be fixed. As I have experienced this error mostly comes due to extra spaces before the PHP tag. So keep this in mind.

If you are not able to solve this problem then comment below or contact us. We will try to help you personally.

Thanks for reading this article.

Have a good day!

Read Next – Googlebot optimization for better SEO | A level up SEO tactics

Create & Submit Sitemap for a WordPress Website with pictures

Sitemap creation and submission are very important if you really want your content to be index faster on Google and other search engines. A sitemap is something which tells webmasters about the links added, updated or deleted on your website.

Every time when you add a post or page, delete some content on your website or update the content, sitemap gets updated itself and search engines like Google follows sitemap timestamp to evaluate and rank your content accordingly.

We have always said that websites which are updated regularly have high chances of ranking than a non-updated site. Google also wants frequent and fruitful updation.

So, how to create a sitemap and how to submit a sitemap to Google and other search engines? is the main concern now.

Creating and submitting a sitemap

If you do not create or submit your sitemap, chances are very hard that your site will rank. If you don’t do it it will come under a big SEO mistake.

For a non-WordPress Website

When we call a non-Wordpress website. it simply means any website which are not using WordPress.com Services. It can be any html, php or other CMS like Drupal or Joomla sites. It can be a Blogger or weebly website.

So, If you want to create a sitemap for non-WordPress website then I already have published a separate article on this. Refer the article here- Read Now

By the way, this article can be used for creating a sitemap for a WordPress website as well. But I don’t recommend this way of sitemap creation and submission for WordPress.

If you want to migrate form blogger to WordPress this post will be useful for you.

Read Recommended – Blogger to WordPress migration in easy steps with pictures

For a WordPress Website

In case of a WordPress blog or website sitemap creation is very easy. You can do it by installing Yoast SEO or All In One SEO. Both the plugins are suitable for SEO management in WordPress.

Enable Sitemap Creation Using Yoast Plugin

For SEO purpose if you have installed Yoast SEO plugin then follow the steps provided below to enable the sitemap creation.

Once sitemap creation is enabled then you can find it at https://domain-name.com/sitemap.xml

In case of Yoast, this address might be changed a little. For a reference, you can see our sitemap address which is “https://okeyravi.com/sitemap_index.xml”

If you have not installed Yoast yet then download here and install to your WordPress.

Once installed follow these steps to enable sitemap –

  1. Navigate to Yoast->General
  2. Open Features tab
  3. Find XML Sitemaps settings
  4. Click on “on” button to enable it
XML sitemap enabling in Yoast by Okey Ravi

Enable Sitemap Creation Using All In One SEO Plugin

Please keep in mind that you only have to use either All in One SEO or Yoast. Don’t install both the plugins together. Otherwise it will create an issue for your website SEO.

If you want to install All In One SEO. Download All In One SEO now.

Now follow these simple step to enable your sitemap creation –

  1. Install and Activate All In One SEO Plugin
  2. Go to Feature Manager
  3. Activate the features you want to use like XML Sitemap, Video SEO, Social and More
  4. Once enabled you can see the XML Sitemap in the menu options of All In One SEO
XmL Sitemap generation using All in One SEO plugin Okey Ravi
Activating XML Sitemap in All in One SEO

In All In One SEO, you also have an option to for “Video SEO” But to get this you have to buy the pro version.

Get All In One SEO Pro

So, you might be happy. You have performed an important task of blogging which is sitemap creation.

Now we will see, How we can submit this sitemap to Google, Bing and Yandex Webmaster tools?

Sitemap Submission to Webmasters

Generally sitemap submission is done for Google, Bing and Yandex Webmasters. We will see them one by one here. We have focused more on Google Sitemap Submission, you can follow up same for Bing and Yandex.

Sitemap Submission in Google Search Console

Follow the steps to submit your sitemap to Google Search Console –

1  Open Google Search Console
2. Click Start Now to create an account
3. Sign in using your Gmail
4. Enter your domain name and click on Add property

Adding a property in Google Search Console

5. Verify your domain Ownership using any method. The available methods are Html file upload, Html tag, Google Analytics, Google tag manager and Domain name provider.

Html File Upload – Download and upload the given html file to the root directory i.e inside public.html folder.

HTML Tag – This method is very easy. an HTML tag will be provided to you. Simply install and activate the  Insert headers and footers plugin. Once installed put the HTML tag inside the header section and click on the save button.

Google Analytics – You can do it in either way. But first, you need to add your website to Google analytics. A tracking code called gtag.js tracking code will be provided to you. Just add that code before </head> tag.

For this, you can use the Google Analytics Plugin or Insert headers and footers plugin.

These three methods are sufficient enough. Don’t go for Google tag manager or Domain name provider methods. It is a bit complicated than these.

Verifying Domain ownership in Google Search Console
Domain Ownership verification in Search Console

6. Once your domain ownership is verified. Now you are ready to submit your sitemap.

7. Go to stemap section and add your sitemap link.

adding a sitemap in Google Search Console
Adding Sitemap in Search Console

8. You are done with the process. Wait for Google to discover, evaluate and index your links.

Note: The process goes same for Bing and Yandex Webmaster. You can submit your sitemap there as well. If you do so, these search engines will index your site.

Read Also – Google index issue, how to index faster on Google?

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