Technical Definition
A sitemap index references multiple sitemap files. Required when total URLs exceed 50,000 per sitemap or 50MB uncompressed. Format: XML with
Simple Explanation (ELI13)
A sitemap index is a sitemap that points to other sitemaps. If you have more than 50,000 URLs, you need multiple sitemaps, and a sitemap index tells Google where they all are. It's like a table of contents for your sitemaps. Large sites commonly use these.
Related Terms
XML Sitemap, Google Search Console, Crawling, Large Sites
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