GWT Error for RSS Feed

[CleverPhD]

Hello there!

I have a new RSS feed that I submitted to GWT.   The feed validates no problemo on http://validator.w3.org/feed/ and also when I test the feed in GWT it comes back aok, finds all the content with "No errors found".

I recently got a issue with GWT not being able to read the rss feed, error on line 697 "We were unable to read your Sitemap. It may contain an entry we are unable to recognize. Please validate your Sitemap before resubmitting."

I am assuming this is an intermittent issue, possibly we had a server issue on the site last night etc. I am checking with my developer this morning.

Wanted to see if anyone else had this issue, if it resolved itself, etc.

Thanks!

[Reinhart]

Hey There,

I think you're probably correct in assuming this is just a hiccup with GWT, particularly if the sitemap was unreachable for some time.

Have you actually looked at line 697 of the sitemap?  Throw it into Notepad++ and check it out.  Maybe there IS something going on with one of your post titles including some weird characters.  It would be worth investigating if you're overly worried about it (which you shouldn't be honestly).

I'd dismiss the error in GWT and see if it crops up again over the next month or so.  If it does (of if you're hyper-vigilant) take a look at the Sitemap and see if you can discern anything different/wrong about line 697.  Sounds like there isn't if the validator didn't pick it up.

Either way this should be a low priority item on your webmaster radar!  Sitemaps are mostly for indexing purposes and if the URL on line 697 (and all other URLs too, I suppose) is/are getting indexed you're good to go anyhow (I'd bet a bottle of whiskey that it's being indexed anyway if your site is being crawled regularly).

Hope that helps,

Jacob @ Distilled.