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March 15, 2006
We've just made some enhancements to the infrastructure that processes Sitemaps. You shouldn't
notice many changes, although you may see new and moredetailed error messagesfor your Sitemaps. If you see a different error message than you've seen before, you can click on
it to view more information about it.
This change may cause some Sitemaps that used to have a status of OK to display an error message.
This is because we've enhanced our reporting to provide error information that wasn't available
to you before. For instance, if you see an "Invalid file format" error, make sure that you've
declared the namespace in your Sitemap file correctly and that theheader matches the examples we providein our documentation.
As part of this change, you can no longer listSitemap index fileswithin Sitemap index files. Each Sitemap index file can list only Sitemaps. Remember that you can
list up to 1,000 Sitemaps in each Sitemap index file. If you have more than 1,000 Sitemaps for a
site, you can submit multiple Sitemap index files.
We've also changed the verificationerror messagewe talked about in a recent blog post. If you request verification and we receive a status other
than200or404when we try to access a non-existent file on your site,
you'll now see an "HTTP error".
We expect this change to be a smooth one, but please let us know in ourGoogle Groupif you experience any trouble.
[[["Easy to understand","easyToUnderstand","thumb-up"],["Solved my problem","solvedMyProblem","thumb-up"],["Other","otherUp","thumb-up"]],[["Missing the information I need","missingTheInformationINeed","thumb-down"],["Too complicated / too many steps","tooComplicatedTooManySteps","thumb-down"],["Out of date","outOfDate","thumb-down"],["Samples / code issue","samplesCodeIssue","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],[],[[["\u003cp\u003eGoogle has improved its Sitemap processing infrastructure, resulting in more detailed error messages and potentially new errors for previously submitted Sitemaps.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eSitemap index files can no longer contain other Sitemap index files, and must directly list individual Sitemaps with a maximum of 1,000 per index file.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eGoogle's verification process now returns an "HTTP error" if a non-200 or non-404 status code is received when checking for a non-existent file during verification.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eUsers should review their Sitemap files for format errors, particularly regarding the namespace declaration and header structure, to address potential new error messages.\u003c/p\u003e\n"]]],["Infrastructure enhancements for Sitemap processing have been implemented, resulting in more detailed error messages. Some Sitemaps previously marked as \"OK\" may now show errors due to improved reporting. Sitemap index files can no longer be nested; they can only list individual Sitemaps, up to 1,000 per index. Verification now returns an \"HTTP error\" for non-200 or non-404 status codes when accessing non-existent files. Users should ensure correct namespace declaration and header formatting.\n"],null,["# Improving things behind the scenes\n\nMarch 15, 2006\n\n\nWe've just made some enhancements to the infrastructure that processes Sitemaps. You shouldn't\nnotice many changes, although you may see new and more\n[detailed error messages](https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/7451001)\nfor your Sitemaps. If you see a different error message than you've seen before, you can click on\nit to view more information about it.\n\n\nThis change may cause some Sitemaps that used to have a status of OK to display an error message.\nThis is because we've enhanced our reporting to provide error information that wasn't available\nto you before. For instance, if you see an \"Invalid file format\" error, make sure that you've\ndeclared the namespace in your Sitemap file correctly and that the\n[header matches the examples we provide](/search/docs/crawling-indexing/sitemaps/build-sitemap#xml)\nin our documentation.\n\n\nAs part of this change, you can no longer list\n[Sitemap index files](/search/docs/crawling-indexing/sitemaps/large-sitemaps)\nwithin Sitemap index files. Each Sitemap index file can list only Sitemaps. Remember that you can\nlist up to 1,000 Sitemaps in each Sitemap index file. If you have more than 1,000 Sitemaps for a\nsite, you can submit multiple Sitemap index files.\n\n\nWe've also changed the verification\n[error message](/search/blog/2006/03/if-you-see-we-couldnt-find-your)\nwe talked about in a recent blog post. If you request verification and we receive a status other\nthan `200` or `404` when we try to access a non-existent file on your site,\nyou'll now see an \"HTTP error\".\n\n\nWe expect this change to be a smooth one, but please let us know in our\n[Google Group](https://support.google.com/webmasters/community)\nif you experience any trouble.\n\nPosted by [Vanessa Fox](https://www.vanessafox.com/)"]]
