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Google's John Mueller confirmed on Twitter that Google may stop fetching your XML Sitemap files if the URL to the Sitemap file is invalid. He said it is fine to have URLs that redirect but they should load content. If not, Google may simply start ignoring your Sitemaps.
John said "We'd stop fetching sitemap files if the URLs are invalid, but if you're returning content or redirecting (which is kinda recommended), we'll keep trying them. It shouldn't cause problems, since overall sitemap files are only a tiny-tiny part of all URLs fetched from a site."
We'd stop fetching sitemap files if the URLs are invalid, but if you're returning content or redirecting (which is kinda recommended), we'll keep trying them. It shouldn't cause problems, since overall sitemap files are only a tiny-tiny part of all URLs fetched from a site.
— 🍌 John 🍌 (@JohnMu) January 16, 2019
So make sure sitemap URL is valid.
Forum discussion at Twitter.
Update from John Mueller:
No, that's wrong. We'll drop your sitemap file if the URL OF YOUR SITEMAP FILE does not work. If /sitemap.xml is a 404, we'll stop fetching it over time.
— 🍌 John 🍌 (@JohnMu) January 17, 2019
