Include & ampersand character in sitemap XML

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In this post, I describe how to fix a sitemap error that can occur if an unescaped character such as an & (ampersand) is included in the sitemap.xml.

Screenshot of error "Sitemap can be read, but has errors"


Cause

The error occurs because the sitemap is not UTF-8 encoded.  In my case, I had a URL with an unescaped & (ampersand):

<url><loc>https://www.centrel-solutions.com/company/testimonial.aspx?directory=education&testimonial=education-the-shared-learning-trust</loc><changefreq>never</changefreq></url>


Resolution

To resolve the error, I used an entity escape code for the & (ampersand) character as per the sitemaps specification:

https://www.sitemaps.org/protocol.html

<url><loc>https://www.centrel-solutions.com/company/testimonial.aspx?directory=education&amp;testimonial=education-the-shared-learning-trust</loc><changefreq>never</changefreq></url>


Validate

You can validate a sitemap here:

https://www.xml-sitemaps.com/validate-xml-sitemap.html

Screenshot showing the sitemap is valid

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