I saw an interesting question about the location, directory, the XML sitemap is placed in. Does that matter to Google, and if so how? John Mueller from Google responded that it depends.
John said on Twitter it depends "on how they [the sitemap files] were discovered." He said (a) If submitted via anonymous ping, they're only valid there & lower levels and (b) If you submit them through your Search Console account, they can be valid for any verified site or part of a site.
Here are the tweets:
Depending on how they were discovered, yes. If submitted via anonymous ping, they're only valid there & lower levels. If you submit them through your SC account, they can be valid for any verified site or part of a site.
— 🍌 John 🍌 (@JohnMu) September 4, 2018
Yes. If you submit sitemaps in Search Console, they can include URLs for any verified path in your account (on that site, or on other sites).
— 🍌 John 🍌 (@JohnMu) September 4, 2018
Let me show you the video embed at the start time, which was from 2017 and started at the 6:26 mark:
Here is the transcript:
I have a new site map for a subdirectory. Does it matter if I tell Search Console the file is in the root of the subdirectory or in the root of the entire domain? Also, how long does it usually take for Google to crawl it? It's been a few days now, and I thought Google was faster.If you have a site map file and it's in a subdirectory, then, by default, that site map file would only be valid for URLs that are in that subdirectory as well.
So that's one thing to watch out for. But past that, it's kind of irrelevant where you place your site map file. If you submit that in Search Console directly, then you'll see the status of the submission. You'll see if it's being processed. You'll see how many of those URLs are being indexed.
Forum discussion at Twitter.
Note: This story was pre-written and scheduled to be posted now, I am currently offline for a holiday.
