How a Trailing Slash in Caddy Broke Our Sitemap in Google Search Console (Full Fix Explained)

Introduction

Sometimes the smallest character in your configuration can break your entire SEO pipeline. In our case, it was a harmless-looking trailing slash that caused Google Search Console to completely reject our sitemap. What made this more frustrating was that everything looked correct in the browser — but Google kept showing errors like:

• Sitemap could not be read
• Couldn't fetch
• General HTTP Error
• Redirect: Sitemap URL points to a different URL

After hours of debugging, we discovered the real culprit:

Caddy was automatically adding a trailing slash ("/") to our sitemap URL, causing Google to treat it as a completely different resource.

What Actually Happened?

Our sitemap lived at the expected URL:

https://aitrendstoday.xyz/sitemap.xml

But behind the scenes, Caddy was performing an automatic redirect:

/sitemap.xml → /sitemap.xml/

This meant Google was seeing two different URLs:

• /sitemap.xml
• /sitemap.xml/

For normal pages this isn't a big deal. But for sitemaps, Google requires:

• No redirects
• No trailing slash variations
• Exact URL must return 200 OK

Caddy’s automatic trailing-slash normalization was silently breaking these rules.

Symptoms in Google Search Console

Google Search Console began throwing errors immediately after submitting the sitemap:

• Sitemap could not be read
• Sitemap URL redirects to a different URL

When Google inspected the URL, it showed:

https://aitrendstoday.xyz/sitemap.xml → https://aitrendstoday.xyz/sitemap.xml/

That redirect alone was enough for Google to reject the file.

Why Trailing Slashes Break Sitemaps

For a sitemap to be valid:

/sitemap.xml       → MUST return 200
/sitemap.xml/      → SHOULD NOT exist
/sitemap.xml       → MUST NOT redirect

Google’s crawler is extremely strict with sitemap URLs:

• It does not want trailing slashes
• It treats /file and /file/ as different
• It rejects redirected sitemaps

So one small slash was breaking everything.

Debugging the Issue

We used curl because browsers hide redirect behavior.

Test 1: Check sitemap URL

curl -I https://aitrendstoday.xyz/sitemap.xml

Expected:

200 OK

Actual:

308 Permanent Redirect → /sitemap.xml/

Test 2: Check the incorrect version

curl -I https://aitrendstoday.xyz/sitemap.xml/

This returned:

200 OK

Which should never happen.

This confirmed the trailing slash redirect problem.

Root Cause: Caddy Path Normalization + 308 Redirects

Caddy automatically normalizes paths. It sees /sitemap.xml and decides:

This might be a folder → add slash

So it redirects:

/sitemap.xml → /sitemap.xml/

Plus, Caddy uses 308 Permanent Redirect by default.

Google hates 308 for sitemaps (and robots.txt). It expects 301, and ideally, no redirect at all.

Together, this created the perfect storm.

The Final Fix (Caddy Configuration)

We fixed the issue by explicitly defining the sitemap route and preventing Caddy from adding a trailing slash.

http://aitrendstoday.xyz {
    redir https://aitrendstoday.xyz{uri} 301
}

https://aitrendstoday.xyz {
    reverse_proxy localhost:9006

    @sitemap {
        path /sitemap.xml
    }

    handle @sitemap {
        rewrite * /sitemap.xml
    }
}

What this fix does:

• Ensures /sitemap.xml returns a clean 200 OK
• Ensures /sitemap.xml/ returns 404
• Forces HTTP → HTTPS redirect using 301 instead of 308
• Makes Google Search Console accept the sitemap

Verification After Fix

We tested again with curl.

Test 1: /sitemap.xml

HTTP/1.1 200 OK

Perfect.

Test 2: /sitemap.xml/

HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found

Correct.

Test 3: Resubmitted in Google Search Console

Status changed instantly to: Success — Sitemap processed successfully

Lessons Learned

1. A single trailing slash can break indexing.
2. Google is strict with sitemaps — no redirects allowed.
3. Caddy’s default redirect (308) is bad for SEO.
4. Always test sitemap & robots.txt with curl.
5. Next.js + Caddy require careful handling of static XML files.

Conclusion

A tiny “/” after sitemap.xml caused Google Search Console to completely reject our sitemap, block indexing, and show misleading errors. After disabling Caddy’s trailing slash normalization and fixing redirects, everything worked perfectly.

If you're using Caddy with Next.js and your sitemap shows errors in GSC, check your redirect chain and trailing slash behavior first — it might save you hours of debugging.