Having 2 sitemaps and one sitemap index in Google webmaster...

Well, somehow it seems that I have 3 sitemaps, the image below will demonstrate it:




Is it ok? should I remove one of the maps? if so, which one?

What are the risks leaving this as it is now?

With kind regards,
Adam.

Hi Adam,

I would remove all of the above and include http://wizcraft.info/sitemap_index.xml.gz this is the only one you should have in Google Webmaster Tools.

Done.

Just wondering... what happens if these 2 other maps would remain there?

Adam.

Originally Posted by Endlesskiss

Done.

Just wondering... what happens if these 2 other maps would remain there?

Adam.

The sitemap index is the "root" sitemap which include sitemap_1 - sitemap_2 - sitemap_3 ....etc
So you no longer need to add sitemap_1 with sitemap_index because sitemap_index will add the others sitemaps to Google automatically

Remove all the sitemaps you have added it and add this sitemap only :

http://www.wizcraft.info/sitemap_index.xml.gz

P.S : That's the correct sitemap URL

But every one have different URLs
Ex: if u have 2000 URLs you will get sitemap_1.xml.gz
if u have 4000 URLs u will get sitemap_2.xml.gz
and so on....

if we have sitemap_index.xml.gz only then when we press on the report we will get the same URLs nothing new
try it and see i'm right

sitemap_index.xml.gz will update with every regeneration to include links to each of the sitemaps.

sitemap_1.xml.gz would include 2000 if this is what you have set it to in the settings.
sitemap_2.xml.gz would also only include 2000 links.

However in this case sitemap_index.xml.gz will only include 2 URLs sitemap_1.xml.gz and sitemap_2.xml.gz google will use this to automatically include the sitemaps, so months or years when you have 1,000,000 URL in your sitemaps and you have 500 Sitemaps from sitemap_1.xml.gz - sitemap_500.xml.gz you will still only need to include the index and google will automatically pick up all 500 sitemaps.

If you only added sitemap_500.xml.gz in this case you would only be telling google about 2000 of you 1,000,000 URLs.

thank you for the good information
I was thinking about that I must include every sitemap I have

but should I include another files with sitemap_index.xml.gz (I mean except the sitemaps Files) or just this is the only one?
because i saw some people have more than one file in there!!
thanks again

sitemap_index is all you need to submit. When you have more content, the extra files will automatically be called via that index. That's what an index file does-- its a table of contents, or index ala a book.