Are all sitemaps pinged, or just the index one?

I noticed Google downloads my /sitemap_index.xml.gz immediately after the sitemap is generated and pinged. However, it may take a couple of days for Google to download my /sitemap_forum_1.xml.gz.

I'm assuming the site map generator pings just the index, not the individual sitemap(s).

I run just a small forum, and I may never need more than one/sitemap_forum_n.xml.gz. Would it not be better for me to attempt to modify my sitemap generator to ping my /sitemap_forum_1.xml.gz instead of the index? Is there a better solution?

Any feedback will be appreciated.

The ping serivces want to see the index file only.

Sitemap_index.xml.gz contains all of your sitemap and by default our sitemap generator tool ping the sitemap index so if you pinged the sitemap index that's mean you have pinged all of your sitemaps because the root sitemap has been re-submitted.

Thanks, Brian and Marko. It's not a big deal, but I wish I could avoid using the INDEX completely, and use instead the one file that is the actual sitemap. Google states a single sitemap file can contain up to 50,000 links, and that is well beyond the number my forum will ever achieve.

Just for the record, I don't use CMS, Blog, etc, I just use Forum, so all the links I submit are within a single /sitemap_forum_1.xml.gz file.

I feel if the Sitemap Generator were able to ping my /sitemap_forum_1.xml.gz file, new threads would have a better chance to get indexed a bit earlier. At the present time, the Index file gets pinged, the Index file gets downloaded by Google immediately, and the /sitemap_forum_1.xml.gz file, which is the one containing the actual links to new threads only gets downloaded every couple of days, or even less frequently.

You can try pinging the sitemap file manually by running it in your browser:

Code:

http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/ping?sitemap=http:%3A//www.domain.com/sitemap_forum_1.xml.gz