Google sitemap guidelines

Ever since Google introduced sitemaps,it  set  very strict guidelines in the making of a sitemap.

For your sitemap (which ever format it be) to receive no error, always make sure that :

• It contains only URL’s of all pages(URL’s for individual images should not be submitted) or list of other sitemaps.
• Even if individual image URL’s are submitted they won’t be indexed.
• If your sitemap is too big separate it into multiple sitemaps and have a single sitemap index file and make a XML format of the sitemap index file.
• A sitemap index file should not contain more than 1000 sitemaps.
• A single sitemap file cannot contain more than 50000 URL’s and no larger than 10MB uncompressed or else follow the above method.
• Use only a single format for all URL’s. For e.g., if you specify your site as www.sriraj.org, then ensure that your sitemap also contains URL’s starting with www and not simply sriraj.org and vice-versa.
• Sitemap must only contain ASCII characters.
• Upper ASCII characters and special characters such as *, $, # are not allowed.

Follow these practices and have a happy webbing.

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