If you have a sitemap that exceeds the
size limits,
you’ll need to split up your large sitemap into multiple sitemaps such that each new sitemap
is below the size limit. Once you’ve split up your sitemap, you can use a sitemap index file
as a way to submit many sitemaps at once.
Sitemap index best practices
The XML format of a sitemap index file is very
similar to the XML format of a sitemap file, and it’s defined by the
Sitemap Protocol.
This means that all the sitemap requirements apply to sitemap index files also.
The referenced sitemaps must be hosted on the same site as your sitemap index file. This
requirement is waived if you set up
cross-site submission.
Sitemaps that are referenced in the sitemap index file must be in the same
directory as the sitemap index file, or lower in the site hierarchy. For example, if the
sitemap index file is at https://example.com/public/sitemap_index.xml, it can
only contain sitemaps that are in the same or deeper directory, like
https://example.com/public/shared/....
You can submit up to 500 sitemap index files for each site in your Search Console account.
Example sitemap index
The following example shows a sitemap index in XML format that lists two sitemaps:
Sitemap index reference
The sitemap index tags are defined by the same namespace as generic sitemaps:
http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9
To make sure Google can use your sitemap index, you must use the following required tags:
| Required tags | |
|---|---|
sitemapindex | The root tag of the XML tree. It contains all the other tags. |
sitemap | The parent tag for each sitemap listed in the file. It’s the only direct child of the sitemapindextag. |
loc | The location (URL) of the sitemap. It’s a child of the sitemap tag. A sitemapindex file may have up to 50,000 loc tags. |
Additionally, the following optional tags may help Google schedule your sitemaps for crawling:
| Optional tags | |
|---|---|
lastmod | Identifies the time that the corresponding sitemap file was modified. It can be a child of a sitemap tag. The value for the lastmod tag must be inW3C Datetime format. |
Troubleshooting sitemaps
If you’re having trouble with your sitemap, you can investigate the errors with Google Search Console.
See Search Console’s
sitemaps troubleshooting guide
for help.
Additional resources
Want to learn more? Check out the following resources:
Cómo lo aplicamos
Index files keep large sitemaps manageable and, more usefully, let us measure coverage by section. Splitting by content type is how we see that product pages are indexed at ninety percent while blog posts sit at forty.
Servicios relacionados