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[Snippets](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/snippet) * Structured data * [Understand how structured data works](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/intro-structured-data) * [Structured data general guidelines](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/sd-policies) * [Enriched search results](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/enriched-search-results) * [Generate structured data with JavaScript](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/generate-structured-data-with-javascript) * Feature guides * [All structured data features](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/search-gallery) * [Article](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/article) * [Book actions](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/book) * 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metadata](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/image-license-metadata) * [Job posting](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/job-posting) * [Local business](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/local-business) * [Math solver](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/math-solvers) * [Movie carousel](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/movie) * [Organization](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/organization) * Shopping * [Overview](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/product) * [Product snippet](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/product-snippet) * [Merchant listing](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/merchant-listing) * 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* [Subscription and paywalled content](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/paywalled-content) * [Vacation rental](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/vacation-rental) * [Video](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/video) * [Title links](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/title-link) * Translated features * [Translated results](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/translated-results) * [Ad networks and translation-related Google Search features](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/ad-network-and-translation) * [Videos](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/video) * [Visual Elements gallery](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/visual-elements-gallery) * Web Stories * [Enable Web Stories on Google](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/enable-web-stories) * [Best practices for creating Web Stories](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/web-stories-creation-best-practices) * [Web Story content policy](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/web-stories-content-policy) * Early Adopters Program * [Package tracking](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/package-tracking) * [Structured data carousels (beta)](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/carousels-beta) * Monitoring and debugging * [Debug drops in Search traffic](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/monitor-debug/debugging-search-traffic-drops) * Monitor with Search Console * [Get started with Search Console](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/monitor-debug/search-console-start) * [Improve SEO with a bubble chart](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/monitor-debug/bubble-chart-analysis) * [Using Search Console and Google Analytics data for SEO](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/monitor-debug/google-analytics-search-console) * Debug with search operators * [Overview](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/monitor-debug/search-operators) * [site: search operator](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/monitor-debug/search-operators/all-search-site) * [Google Images search operators](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/monitor-debug/search-operators/image-search) * Preventing and monitoring abuse * [Overview](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/monitor-debug/security) * [Prevent user-generated spam](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/monitor-debug/prevent-abuse) * [Malware and unwanted software](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/monitor-debug/security/malware) * [Prevent a malware infection](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/monitor-debug/security/prevent-malware) * [Social engineering (phishing and deceptive sites)](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/monitor-debug/security/social-engineering) * [Google Safe Browsing Repeat Offenders Policy](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/monitor-debug/security/safe-browsing-repeat-offenders) * [Get started with Google Trends](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/monitor-debug/trends-start) * Site-specific guides * Ecommerce * [Overview](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/specialty/ecommerce) * [Where content can appear](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/specialty/ecommerce/where-ecommerce-data-can-appear-on-google) * [Share product data](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/specialty/ecommerce/share-your-product-data-with-google) * [Include structured data](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/specialty/ecommerce/include-structured-data-relevant-to-ecommerce) * [Launch a new website](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/specialty/ecommerce/how-to-launch-an-ecommerce-website) * [Write high quality reviews](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/specialty/ecommerce/write-high-quality-reviews) * [Design a URL structure](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/specialty/ecommerce/designing-a-url-structure-for-ecommerce-sites) * [Ecommerce site structure](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/specialty/ecommerce/help-google-understand-your-ecommerce-site-structure) * [Pagination, incremental page loading, and Search](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/specialty/ecommerce/pagination-and-incremental-page-loading) * International and multilingual * [Overview](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/specialty/international) * [Managing multi-regional and multilingual sites](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/specialty/international/managing-multi-regional-sites) * [Tell Google about localized versions of your page](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/specialty/international/localized-versions) * [How Google crawls locale-adaptive pages](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/specialty/international/locale-adaptive-pages) * Explicit content * [Guidelines for sites with explicit content](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/specialty/explicit/guidelines) * [What to do if your site is incorrectly flagged as explicit](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/specialty/explicit/troubleshooting) * SEO fundamentals * [Introduction](https://developers.google.com/search/docs) * [Search Essentials](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/essentials) * [SEO Starter Guide](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/seo-starter-guide) * [Optimizing for generative AI search](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/ai-optimization-guide) * [How Google Search Works](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/how-search-works) * [Do you need an SEO?](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/do-i-need-seo) * Crawling and indexing * [Sitemaps](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/sitemaps/overview) * [robots.txt](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/robots/intro) * [Meta tags](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/special-tags) * [Crawler management](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/ask-google-to-recrawl) * [Removals](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/control-what-you-share) * [Canonicalization](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/consolidate-duplicate-urls) * [Redirects](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/301-redirects) * [JavaScript SEO](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/javascript/javascript-seo-basics) * Ranking and search appearance * [Visual Elements gallery](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/visual-elements-gallery) * [Title links](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/title-link) * [Snippets](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/snippet) * [Images](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/google-images) * [Videos](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/video) * [Structured data](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/search-gallery) * [Favicons](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/favicon-in-search) * Site-specific guides * [Ecommerce](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/specialty/ecommerce) * [International and multilingual sites](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/specialty/international) * Data analysis * [Get started with Search Console](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/monitor-debug/search-console-start) * [Debug traffic drops](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/monitor-debug/debugging-search-traffic-drops) * [Using Search Console and Google Analytics data for SEO](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/monitor-debug/google-analytics-search-console) * [Get started with Google Trends](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/monitor-debug/trends-start) * [All updates](https://developers.google.com/search/news) * [Documentation updates](https://developers.google.com/search/updates) * [Ranking updates](https://status.search.google.com/products/rGHU1u87FJnkP6W2GwMi/history) * [New YouTube videos](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWf2ZlNsCGDS89VBF_awNvA) * [Recent podcast episodes](https://pod.link/1512522198) * [Home](https://developers.google.com/) * [Search Central](https://developers.google.com/search) * [Documentation](https://developers.google.com/search/docs) Send feedback Manage your sitemaps with a sitemap index file ============================================== If you have a sitemap that exceeds the [size limits](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/sitemaps/build-sitemap) , you'll need to split up your large sitemap into multiple sitemaps such that each new sitemap is below the size limit. Once you've split up your sitemap, you can use a sitemap index file as a way to submit many sitemaps at once. Sitemap index best practices ---------------------------- The XML format of a sitemap index file is very similar to the XML format of a sitemap file, and it's defined by the [Sitemap Protocol](https://www.sitemaps.org/protocol.html#index) . This means that all the sitemap requirements apply to sitemap index files also. The referenced sitemaps must be hosted on the same site as your sitemap index file. This requirement is waived if you set up [cross-site submission](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/sitemaps/build-sitemap#cross-submit) . Sitemaps that are referenced in the sitemap index file must be in the same directory as the sitemap index file, or lower in the site hierarchy. For example, if the sitemap index file is at `https://example.com/public/sitemap_index.xml`, it can only contain sitemaps that are in the same or deeper directory, like `https://example.com/public/shared/...`. You can submit up to 500 sitemap index files for each site in your Search Console account. Example sitemap index --------------------- The following example shows a sitemap index in XML format that lists two sitemaps: https://www.example.com/sitemap1.xml.gz 2024-08-15 https://www.example.com/sitemap2.xml.gz 2022-06-05 Sitemap index reference ----------------------- The sitemap index tags are defined by the same namespace as generic sitemaps: [`http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9`](http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9) To make sure Google can use your sitemap index, you must use the following required tags: | Required tags | | | --- | --- | | `sitemapindex` | The root tag of the XML tree. It contains all the other tags. | | `sitemap` | The parent tag for each sitemap listed in the file. It's the only direct child of the `sitemapindex` tag. | | `loc` | The location (URL) of the sitemap. It's a child of the `sitemap` tag. A sitemap index file may have up to 50,000 `loc` tags. | Additionally, the following optional tags may help Google schedule your sitemaps for crawling: | Optional tags | | | --- | --- | | `lastmod` | Identifies the time that the corresponding sitemap file was modified. It can be a child of a `sitemap` tag. The value for the `lastmod` tag must be in [W3C Datetime format](https://www.w3.org/TR/NOTE-datetime)
. | Troubleshooting sitemaps ------------------------ If you're having trouble with your sitemap, you can investigate the errors with Google Search Console. See Search Console's [sitemaps troubleshooting guide](https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/7451001#errors) for help. Additional resources -------------------- Want to learn more? Check out the following resources: * [Submit your sitemap to Google](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/sitemaps/build-sitemap#addsitemap) * [Learn how to combine sitemap extensions](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/sitemaps/combine-sitemap-extensions) Send feedback Except as otherwise noted, the content of this page is licensed under the [Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , and code samples are licensed under the [Apache 2.0 License](https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0) . For details, see the [Google Developers Site Policies](https://developers.google.com/site-policies) . Java is a registered trademark of Oracle and/or its affiliates. Last updated 2025-12-10 UTC. * [![LinkedIn](https://developers.google.com/static/search/images/li.png)LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/googlesearchcentral/) Join us on LinkedIn * [![YouTube](https://developers.google.com/static/homepage-assets/images/yt.svg)YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWf2ZlNsCGDS89VBF_awNvA) Watch our videos * [![Blog](https://fonts.gstatic.com/s/i/short-term/release/googlesymbols/rss_feed/default/24px.svg)Blog](https://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/amDG) Subscribe to our RSS feed * [![Podcast](https://developers.google.com/static/search/images/search-off-the-record-podcast-logo.png)Podcast](https://pod.link/1512522198) Listen to Search Off the Record * [![X (Twitter)](https://developers.google.com/static/homepage-assets/images/x.svg)X (Twitter)](https://twitter.com/googlesearchc) Join us on X (Twitter) * ### Get support * [Go to the help forum](https://support.google.com/webmasters/community) * [Submit a question for office hours](https://developers.google.com/search/help/office-hours) * [Report spam, phishing, or malware](https://developers.google.com/search/help/report-quality-issues) * [More support resources](https://developers.google.com/search/help) * ### Resources * [Do you need an SEO?](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/get-on-google) * [SEO Starter Guide](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/seo-starter-guide) * [Status of Search systems](https://status.search.google.com/) * [Search Console documentation](https://support.google.com/webmasters) * [Case Studies](https://developers.google.com/search/case-studies) * ### Tools * [Search Console](https://search.google.com/search-console) * [Rich Results Test](https://search.google.com/test/rich-results) * [PageSpeed Insights](https://pagespeed.web.dev/) * [AMP Test](https://search.google.com/test/amp) [![Google Developers](https://www.gstatic.com/devrel-devsite/prod/vb08cbdb02acf7f66ad9727ddfba9d81df8806422eb5dd63dba194c9c8c7997f7/developers/images/lockup-google-for-developers.svg)](https://developers.google.com/) * [Android](https://developer.android.com/) * [Chrome](https://developer.chrome.com/home) * [Firebase](https://firebase.google.com/) * [Google Cloud Platform](https://cloud.google.com/) * [Google AI](https://ai.google.dev/) * [All products](https://developers.google.com/products) * [Terms](https://developers.google.com/terms/site-terms) * [Privacy](https://policies.google.com/privacy) * [Manage cookies](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/sitemaps/large-sitemaps#) * English * Deutsch * Español * Español – América Latina * Français * Indonesia * Italiano * Polski * Português – Brasil * Tiếng Việt * Türkçe * Русский * العربيّة * हिंदी * ภาษาไทย * 中文 – 简体 * 中文 – 繁體 * 日本語 * 한국어