I have one site automatically found 9 site maps and I can't figure out if I need them or not. They seem to go to the same pages. If I delete any of them, will it hurt the ranking? And if not, which one should I delete? Thanks in advance
I've two sitemaps, one first for blog and second for main domain. As I understand, you've a WP site. How many plugins do you utilize?
You only need to submit your sitemap once in the search console. After that, they will keep re-crawling it on a schedule that they think makes sense based on what they know about your site.
Typically, every website must have at least two different types of sitemaps, XML sitemaps, and HTML sitemaps.
You only need to submit your sitemap per search engine in the search console.
Quote from: ChChui on 02-21-2023, 11:49:52
I've two sitemaps, one first for blog and second for main domain. As I understand, you've a WP site. How many plugins do you utilize?
Only two of them - Yoast SEO and Google Sitemaps. That's all, but somehow Google found sitemaps, which are include wp stuff. Can it harm to rank of my site?
I don't think so. But it will annoy you in Search Console with its presence. Check sitemaps generation again and remove unnecessary. There's only one click.
A website's requirement for the number of sitemaps it should have is not specified by Google. However, the number of sitemaps required will be determined by your website's size and complexity.
A single sitemap might be all that is needed for smaller websites with fewer than 500 pages. However, multiple sitemaps may be required for larger websites with thousands or even millions of pages.
It is important to note that Google suggests grouping sitemaps in logical ways, such as by content type or section of the website. Google might be able to crawl and index your pages more quickly with this.
In the event that you have a huge site, you can make a sitemap record dоcument that rundowns all of the sitemaps on your site. Google may find it easier to locate and crawl all of your website's pages as a result of this.
The total number of sitemaps you need will depend on your website's size and complexity, but it's always a good idea to follow Google's best practices for sitemap organization and structure.
Google does not require a specific number of sitemaps for a website. However, it is recommended to create and submit a sitemap that includes all the important pages of your website for better indexing and crawling by Google. You can create multiple sitemaps if needed, but it's important to ensure that they are correctly formatted and submitted through Google Search Console for effective website optimization.
Typically, every website must have at least two different types of sitemaps, XML sitemaps and HTML sitemaps.
Sitemap size limitations: All formats limit a single sitemap to 50MB (uncompressed) or 50,000 URLs. If you have a larger file or more URLs, you must split your sitemap into numerous sitemaps. You can optionally generate a sitemap index file and submit it to Google.
Nine sitemaps for the same URLs is pure SEO spam noise, not "optimization". Delete duplicated feeds, tag maps, or attachment maps first. Keep the main XML sitemap with 200-status URLs only. Googlebot cares about clean crawl paths, not sitemap inflation.