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Here are some more FAQ about XML sitemaps
Does it matter which character encoding method I use to generate my Sitemap files?
How do I specify time?
How do I compute lastmod date?
Where do I place my Sitemap?
How big can my Sitemap be?
My site has tens of millions of URLs; can I somehow submit only those that have changed recently?
What do I do after I create my Sitemap?
Do URLs in the Sitemap need to be completely specified?
My site has both "http" and "https" versions of URLs. Do I need to list both?
URLs on my site have session IDs in them. Do I need to remove them?
Does position of a URL in a Sitemap influence its use?
Some of the pages on my site use frames. Should I include the frameset URLs or the URLs of the frame contents?
Can I zip my Sitemaps or do they have to be zipped?
Will the "priority" hint in the XML Sitemap change the ranking of my pages in search results?
What if I have another question about using the protocol or submitting a Sitemap?


Does it matter which character encoding method I use to generate my Sitemap files?
Yes. Your Sitemap files must use UTF-8 encoding.Top

How do I specify time?
Use W3C Datetime encoding for the lastmod timestamps and all other dates and times in this protocol. For example, 2004-09-22T14:12:14+00:00.
This encoding allows you to omit the time portion of the ISO8601 format; for example, 2004-09-22 is also valid. However, if your site changes frequently, you are encouraged to include the time portion so crawlers have more complete information about your site.Top

How do I compute lastmod date?
For static files, this is the actual file update date. You can use the UNIX date command to get this date:
$ date --iso-8601=seconds -u -r /home/foo/www/bar.html
>>2004-10-26T08:56:39+00:00
For many dynamic URLs, you may be able to easily compute a lastmod date based on when the underlying data was changed or by using some approximation based on periodic updates (if applicable). Using even an approximate date or timestamp can help crawlers avoid crawling URLs that have not changed. This will reduce the bandwidth and CPU requirements for your web servers.Top

Where do I place my Sitemap?
It is strongly recommended that you place your Sitemap at the root directory of your HTML server; that is, place it at http://example.com/sitemap.xml.
In some situations, you may want to produce different Sitemaps for different paths on your site — e.g., if security permissions in your organization compartmentalize write access to different directories.
We assume that if you have the permission to upload http://example.com/path/sitemap.xml, you also have permission to report metadata under http://example.com/path/.
All URLs listed in the Sitemap must reside on the same host as the Sitemap. For instance, if the Sitemap is located at http://www.example.com/sitemap.xml, it can't include URLs from http://subdomain.example.com. If the Sitemap is located at http://www.example.com/myfolder/sitemap.xml, it can't include URLs from http://www.example.com. Top

How big can my Sitemap be?
Sitemaps should be no larger than 10MB (10,485,760 bytes) and can contain a maximum of 50,000 URLs. These limits help to ensure that your web server does not get bogged down serving very large files. This means that if your site contains more than 50,000 URLs or your Sitemap is bigger than 10MB, you must create multiple Sitemap files and use a Sitemap index file. You should use a Sitemap index file even if you have a small site but plan on growing beyond 50,000 URLs or a file size of 10MB. A Sitemap index file can include up to 1,000 Sitemaps and must not exceed 10MB (10,485,760 bytes). You can also use gzip to compress your Sitemaps.Top

My site has tens of millions of URLs; can I somehow submit only those that have changed recently?
You can list the URLs that change frequently in a small number of Sitemaps and then use the lastmod tag in your Sitemap index file to identify those Sitemap files. Search engines can then incrementally crawl only the changed Sitemaps. Top

What do I do after I create my Sitemap?
Once you have created the Sitemap file and placed it on your webserver, you submit it to search engines that support the Sitemaps protocol. The search engines can then retrieve your Sitemap and make the URLs available to their crawlers. Refer to each search engine's documentation for more information about submitting to them. You can also submit your Sitemap using an HTTP request (replace <searchengine_URL> with the URL provided by the search engine):
Issue your request to the following URL:

<searchengine_URL>/ping?sitemap=sitemap_urlFor example, if your Sitemap is located at http://www.example.com/sitemap.gz, your URL will become:

<searchengine_URL>/ping?sitemap=http://www.example.com/sitemap.gzURL encode everything after the /ping?sitemap=:

<searchengine_URL>/ping?sitemap=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.yoursite.com%2Fsitemap.gzYou can issue the HTTP request using wget, curl, or another mechanism of your choosing. A successful request will return an HTTP 200 response code; if you receive a different response, you should resubmit your request. The HTTP 200 response code only indicates that the search engine has received your Sitemap, not that the Sitemap itself or the URLs contained in it were valid. An easy way to do this is to set up an automated job to generate and submit Sitemaps on a regular basis.

Note: If you are providing a Sitemap index file, you only need to issue one HTTP request that includes the location of the Sitemap index file; you do not need to issue individual requests for each Sitemap listed in the index. Top

Do URLs in the Sitemap need to be completely specified?
Yes. You need to include the protocol (for instance, http) in your URL. You also need to include a trailing slash in your URL if your web server requires one. For example, http://www.example.com/ is a valid URL for a Sitemap, whereas www.example.com is not.Top

My site has both "http" and "https" versions of URLs. Do I need to list both?
No. Please list only one version of a URL in your Sitemaps. Including multiple versions of URLs may result in incomplete crawling of your site.Top

URLs on my site have session IDs in them. Do I need to remove them?
Yes. Including session IDs in URLs may result in incomplete and redundant crawling of your site.

Does position of a URL in a Sitemap influence its use?
No. The position of a URL in the Sitemap is not likely to impact how it is used or regarded by search engines.Top

Some of the pages on my site use frames. Should I include the frameset URLs or the URLs of the frame contents?
Please include both URLs.Top

Can I zip my Sitemaps or do they have to be zipped?
Your Sitemaps will be downloaded as xml file so no need to unzip the file. Remember, your Sitemap must be no larger than 10MB (10,485,760 bytes), whether compressed or not. Top

Will the "priority" hint in the XML Sitemap change the ranking of my pages in search results?
The "priority" hint in your Sitemap only indicates the importance of a particular URL relative to other URLs on your own site and does not imply any effect on the ranking of your pages in search results.Top

What if I have another question about using the protocol or submitting a Sitemap?
See Google support group for more details Top

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