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I have a file sitemap.xml that is a master index for links to several other sitemaps: sitemap1.xml, sitemap2.xml, sitemap3.xml, .... sitemap20.xml

sitemap.xml looks like this:

 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
 <sitemapindex xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9 http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9/siteindex.xsd">
 <sitemap>
     <loc>http://example.com/sitemap/sitemap0.xml.gz</loc>
     <lastmod>2014-10-29</lastmod>
 </sitemap>
 <sitemap>
     <loc>http://example.com/sitemap/sitemap10.xml.gz</loc>
     <lastmod>2014-10-29</lastmod>
 </sitemap>

 ...more links to other sitemaps...

If I resubmit the parent sitemap.xml in Google's webmaster tools, does it automatically resubmit the children sitemap files it lists (assuming their last updated attribute is later than the one already held by Google)?

Ray
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  • From here it seems yes https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/75712?rd=1 – loveNoHate Nov 03 '14 at 17:46
  • @DOCASAREL That only covers submission of multiple files, which I use, but not explicitly whether resubmission clears out whatever google has cached for child sitemap files (like last weeks sitemap1.xml). I just resumbitted my master file, but it doesn't show the child files being reprocessed. – Ray Nov 03 '14 at 17:50
  • Oh, I see. So I guess you can take from the link, that the main Sitemap submitting works on the children for the first time. Here I found an interesting comment: [First comment by NICK](http://webmasters.stackexchange.com/a/14142). – loveNoHate Nov 03 '14 at 17:57
  • @DOCASAREL I've updated all my last modified dates past the last time they were processed by google. I'm going to look in a couple hours to see if they get picked up on. I'd ask google, but the last two support tickets I had with them took about 30 days each to hear back :/ Guess it's good to be the king. – Ray Nov 03 '14 at 18:07
  • Oh, you HEARD back from google? :o That's not bad. Where can you make tickets at all? %)P – loveNoHate Nov 03 '14 at 19:15

2 Answers2

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Anything you submit in a sitemap will be looked at. Any links to other sitemaps will be evaluated, but they will be evaluated more like HTML content and not like sitemap XML submissions. If you know you have multiple site maps, the best thing to do is submit them all. If they change dynamically, then submit them all using Google's API. Also, if you have a static number of site maps, you can just tell Google about them via Webmaster Tools, and Google will ping them automatically every few days, as long as the content stays evergreen.

Robert82
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  • Do you think google will see a link to a child sitemap that indicates 'last updated' is after the last time google processed it affect whether google continues to use their currently held version file for crawling? – Ray Nov 04 '14 at 14:49
  • If it's just another link within a parent sitemap, not one that's directly submitted as a sitemap via webmaster tools, I think it'll be evaluated just like another content page (i.e. HTML/PHP/ect page). With webmaster tools and especially the API to submit the sitemap remotely and programmatically, there's no reason NOT to submit it as a sitemap. If it's not submitted as a sitemap, I'm not sure Google has a reason to treat it like one. Plus, Google is only 60%-70% of traffic, question is, will Bing/Yahoo be smart enough to understand the structure? they make up much of the rest of traffic. – Robert82 Nov 04 '14 at 17:53
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No they are not. You should declare each sitemap in your robots.txt file. Like this, all search engines will be able to find all of them and will recrawl them from time to time, automatically.

Jérôme Verstrynge
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