Google’s John Mueller answered a query about what number of sitemaps to add, after which mentioned there are not any ensures that any of the URLs will likely be crawled straight away.
A member of the r/TechSEO group on Reddit requested if it’s sufficient to add the primary sitemap.xml file, which then hyperlinks to the extra granular sitemaps. What prompted the query was their concern over just lately altering their web site web page slugs (URL file names).
That particular person requested:
“I submitted “sitemap.xml” to Google Search Console, is that this ample or do I additionally have to submit page-sitemap.xml and sitemap-misc.xml as separate entries for it to work?
I just lately modified my web site’s web page slugs, how lengthy will it take for Google Search Console to think about the sitemap”
Mueller responded that importing the sitemap index file (sitemap.xml) was sufficient and that Google would proceed from there. He additionally shared that it wasn’t essential to add the person granular sitemaps.
What was of particular curiosity had been his feedback indicating that importing sitemaps didn’t “assure” that each one the URLs could be crawled and that there isn’t any set time for when Googlebot would crawl the sitemap URLs. He additionally instructed utilizing the Examine URL instrument.
He shared:
“You’ll be able to submit the person ones, however you don’t really want to. Additionally, sitemaps don’t assure that all the things is recrawled instantly + there’s no particular time for recrawling. For particular person pages, I’d use the examine URL instrument and submit them (along with sitemaps).”
Is There Worth In Importing All Sitemaps?
In line with John Mueller, it’s sufficient to add the index sitemap file. Nonetheless, from our facet of the Search Console, I feel most individuals would agree that it’s higher to not go away it to probability that Google will or won’t crawl a URL. For that cause, SEOs could resolve it’s reassuring to go forward and add all sitemaps that include the modified URLs.
The URL Inspection instrument is a stable strategy as a result of it allows SEOs to request crawling for a selected URL. The draw back of the instrument is that you would be able to solely request this for one URL at a time. Google’s URL Inspection instrument doesn’t help bulk URL submissions for indexing.
See additionally: Bing Recommends lastmod Tags For AI Search Indexing
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