A properly configured robots.txt file and XML sitemap are two fundamental components of technical SEO. They help search engines such as Google, Microsoft Bing and Yandex understand which parts of a website may be crawled and where important public URLs can be discovered.

This becomes particularly important for a knowledgebase containing hundreds or thousands of technical articles.

A PHP-based knowledgebase may, for example, generate article URLs dynamically:

https://knowledgebase.example.com/view_article.php?id=1175
https://knowledgebase.example.com/view_article.php?id=1417

There is nothing inherently wrong with such URLs. A dynamically generated PHP sitemap can list these articles just as effectively as a static .xml file.

This guide explains how robots.txt, PHP-generated XML sitemaps, <lastmod>, internal search pages and Google News sitemaps should be configured.

1. What Is robots.txt?

robots.txt is a plain-text file placed at the root of a website or subdomain.

For example:

https://knowledgebase.example.com/robots.txt

It provides instructions to compliant search-engine crawlers about areas of the website they should or should not crawl.

A typical configuration for a knowledgebase might look like this:

User-agent: *
Allow: /

Disallow: /admin/
Disallow: /ajax/
Disallow: /dashboard.php
Disallow: /create_article.php
Disallow: /edit_article.php
Disallow: /login.php
Disallow: /search.php

Sitemap: https://knowledgebase.example.com/sitemap.php

This is a sensible configuration for many PHP-based knowledgebase websites.

2. Understanding User-agent: *

The following directive:

User-agent: *

means that the rules following it apply to all compliant web crawlers unless another crawler-specific rule overrides them.

This may include crawlers such as:

• Googlebot
• Bingbot
• YandexBot
• Other legitimate search-engine crawlers

The * acts as a wildcard.

3. What Does Allow: / Mean?

This directive:

Allow: /

indicates that crawling of the website is generally permitted.

Specific areas can subsequently be excluded with Disallow.

For example:

Allow: /

Disallow: /admin/
Disallow: /login.php

This allows the public website to be crawled while asking crawlers not to crawl the specified administrative areas.

4. Why Administrative Pages Should Usually Be Excluded

Knowledgebase systems often contain pages that provide no value in search results.

Examples include:

/admin/
/dashboard.php
/create_article.php
/edit_article.php
/login.php

These are application-management pages rather than public knowledge content.

Therefore directives such as:

Disallow: /admin/
Disallow: /dashboard.php
Disallow: /create_article.php
Disallow: /edit_article.php
Disallow: /login.php

are reasonable.

However, an important security principle must be understood:

robots.txt is not a security mechanism.

A Disallow rule merely requests that compliant crawlers avoid crawling a URL.

Administrative pages must still be protected with proper authentication, authorization, session security and other server-side controls.

5. Why Internal Search Results Can Be Excluded

Suppose a knowledgebase has an internal search facility:

/search.php?q=windows
/search.php?q=google
/search.php?q=tally
/search.php?q=server

Potentially thousands of combinations can be generated.

These pages can consume crawler resources and may substantially overlap with content already available through actual article pages.

A knowledgebase administrator may therefore use:

Disallow: /search.php

to discourage crawlers from crawling internal search-result URLs.

The primary SEO target should normally be the actual knowledge articles.

6. robots.txt on a Main Domain Does Not Automatically Apply to a Subdomain

This is an important technical point.

Suppose a business operates:

https://example.com/

and:

https://knowledgebase.example.com/

The file:

https://example.com/robots.txt

does not control crawling rules for:

https://knowledgebase.example.com/

The subdomain can have its own file:

https://knowledgebase.example.com/robots.txt

This allows different crawling policies for different hosts.

For a substantial knowledgebase hosted on a subdomain, maintaining an appropriate subdomain-specific robots.txt is good practice.

7. Is robots.txt Mandatory?

No.

A website does not have to provide a robots.txt file in order to appear in search results.

However, it is useful for controlling crawler access and can also advertise the location of the website's sitemap.

For example:

Sitemap: https://knowledgebase.example.com/sitemap.php

8. What Is an XML Sitemap?

An XML sitemap is a machine-readable list of URLs that a website wants search engines to discover.

A basic sitemap looks like:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">

    <url>
        <loc>https://knowledgebase.example.com/</loc>
    </url>

    <url>
        <loc>https://knowledgebase.example.com/view_article.php?id=1001</loc>
        <lastmod>2026-08-18</lastmod>
    </url>

</urlset>

A sitemap helps search engines discover URLs, but inclusion in a sitemap does not guarantee indexing or ranking.

9. Does a Sitemap Have to Be Named sitemap.xml?

No.

This is a common misunderstanding.

A sitemap may be dynamically generated by PHP.

For example:

https://knowledgebase.example.com/sitemap.php

can be perfectly valid.

The important factors are that the URL returns a valid sitemap and the server provides an appropriate response.

For example:

header("Content-Type: application/xml; charset=UTF-8");

A PHP script can query a database and dynamically generate the XML every time the sitemap is requested.

This can be particularly convenient for a knowledgebase because new articles can automatically appear without manually rebuilding a static file.

10. Example of a PHP-Generated Sitemap

A simplified implementation could be:

<?php

declare(strict_types=1);

header('Content-Type: application/xml; charset=UTF-8');

require_once __DIR__ . '/db.php';

echo '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>';
?>

<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">

    <url>
        <loc>https://knowledgebase.example.com/</loc>
    </url>

<?php

$sql = "
    SELECT id, DATE(dt) AS lastmod
    FROM articles
    WHERE type = '0'
      AND status = 1
    ORDER BY id DESC
";

$result = $conn->query($sql);

while ($row = $result->fetch_assoc()) {
?>

    <url>
        <loc>https://knowledgebase.example.com/view_article.php?id=<?= (int)$row['id'] ?></loc>
        <lastmod><?= htmlspecialchars($row['lastmod'], ENT_XML1, 'UTF-8') ?></lastmod>
    </url>

<?php
}
?>

</urlset>

This approach automatically selects published articles from the database and creates an XML sitemap.

11. Why status=1 Is Useful

Consider:

WHERE type='0' AND status=1

If status=1 represents a published article, this is useful because drafts, disabled records or unpublished content are excluded.

Only URLs that are intended to be publicly accessible and indexable should normally be submitted through the sitemap.

12. Understanding <lastmod>

One of the most useful optional sitemap fields is:

<lastmod>2026-08-18</lastmod>

It tells search engines when the page was last significantly modified.

For example:

<url>
    <loc>https://knowledgebase.example.com/view_article.php?id=1001</loc>
    <lastmod>2026-08-18</lastmod>
</url>

Accurate modification dates can help crawlers determine whether revisiting a URL may be worthwhile.

13. Do Not Artificially Change <lastmod> Every Day

A common mistake is:

<lastmod><?= date('Y-m-d') ?></lastmod>

This causes the sitemap to report today's date every day regardless of whether the page actually changed.

For example, a homepage that has not changed since August 10 could still report:

<lastmod>2026-08-18</lastmod>

That is not an accurate modification signal.

A better approach is to omit <lastmod> when a reliable modification date is unavailable.

For example:

<url>
    <loc>https://knowledgebase.example.com/</loc>
</url>

14. Creation Date vs Modification Date

This distinction is especially important for an established knowledgebase.

Suppose an article was originally published on:

15-Jun-2024

and significantly rewritten on:

18-Aug-2026

The sitemap should ideally report:

<lastmod>2026-08-18</lastmod>

rather than continuing to report:

<lastmod>2024-06-15</lastmod>

Therefore database design matters.

15. Recommended Database Fields

A well-designed article table could contain separate fields such as:

created_at
updated_at

For example:

created_at = 2024-06-15 10:20:00
updated_at = 2026-08-18 14:35:00

The sitemap can then use the modification date.

An SQL query could be:

SELECT
    id,
    DATE(COALESCE(updated_at, created_at)) AS lastmod
FROM articles
WHERE type='0'
AND status=1
ORDER BY id DESC

COALESCE() provides a useful fallback.

If updated_at is available, it is used.

If it is NULL, created_at is used.

16. Existing Websites May Use a Single dt Field

Older applications sometimes have only:

dt

Before using it for <lastmod>, determine what the field actually represents.

It might mean:

• Date created
• Date published
• Date last edited
• Generic record timestamp

If dt is automatically updated whenever an article is edited, it may work well as <lastmod>.

If it represents only the original publication date, consider adding a dedicated updated_at field.

17. Should <priority> Be Used?

Sitemaps can contain:

<priority>1.0</priority>

or:

<priority>0.8</priority>

This is part of the Sitemap Protocol, but it should not be treated as a Google ranking control.

For example:

<priority>1.0</priority>

does not mean:

Rank this page higher in Google.

For a straightforward knowledgebase sitemap, it is perfectly reasonable to omit <priority>.

18. What About <changefreq>?

Another optional sitemap element is:

<changefreq>weekly</changefreq>

Values may include terms such as:

always
hourly
daily
weekly
monthly
yearly
never

However, a knowledgebase does not need to populate this field merely to make the sitemap valid.

A clean sitemap containing:

<loc>
<lastmod>

is generally sufficient.

19. Recommended Sitemap Structure

A clean sitemap entry can simply be:

<url>
    <loc>https://knowledgebase.example.com/view_article.php?id=1175</loc>
    <lastmod>2026-08-18</lastmod>
</url>

There is no need to fill the sitemap with unnecessary metadata.

20. XML Escaping Is Important

Article data originating from a database should be safely encoded when inserted into XML.

PHP provides:

htmlspecialchars($value, ENT_XML1, 'UTF-8')

This is particularly important when dynamic text such as article titles is included in XML.

Characters such as:

&
<
>

can otherwise break XML syntax.

21. Cast Database IDs to Integers

Instead of directly outputting:

<?= $row['id'] ?>

using:

<?= (int)$row['id'] ?>

is a cleaner approach when IDs are expected to be numeric.

For example:

<loc>https://knowledgebase.example.com/view_article.php?id=<?= (int)$row['id'] ?></loc>

22. Sitemap URL Limits

Under the standard Sitemap Protocol, a single sitemap is limited to:

• 50,000 URLs
• 50 MB uncompressed

Therefore a knowledgebase containing approximately a few thousand articles does not need multiple sitemap files merely because it has grown beyond a small site.

If the site eventually exceeds the limits, multiple sitemaps can be created.

For example:

sitemap-articles-1.xml
sitemap-articles-2.xml
sitemap-pages.xml

These can then be referenced from a sitemap index.

23. What Is a Sitemap Index?

A sitemap index points to multiple sitemap files.

Example:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<sitemapindex xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">

    <sitemap>
        <loc>https://knowledgebase.example.com/sitemap-articles-1.xml</loc>
    </sitemap>

    <sitemap>
        <loc>https://knowledgebase.example.com/sitemap-articles-2.xml</loc>
    </sitemap>

</sitemapindex>

Smaller knowledgebases generally do not need this complexity.

24. What Is a Google News Sitemap?

A Google News sitemap is different from a normal XML sitemap.

It contains a namespace such as:

xmlns:news="http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap-news/0.9"

and elements such as:

<news:news>
    <news:publication>
        <news:name>Example Publication</news:name>
        <news:language>en</news:language>
    </news:publication>

    <news:publication_date>
        2026-08-18T10:00:00+05:30
    </news:publication_date>

    <news:title>
        Example News Article
    </news:title>
</news:news>

This has a specific purpose and should not be confused with a normal website sitemap.

25. A Technical Knowledgebase Does Not Automatically Need a News Sitemap

Suppose a website publishes articles such as:

• How to Configure Windows 11
• How to Use Microsoft Bing Webmaster Tools
• Google Workspace Troubleshooting Guide
• How to Repair a RAW Hard Drive
• TallyPrime Configuration Guide
• How to Configure SPF, DKIM and DMARC

These are primarily:

tutorials, documentation, troubleshooting articles and technical guides.

Publishing one today does not automatically transform it into a news article.

Therefore a standard technical knowledgebase normally does not need to classify every newly published article as Google News content.

26. Why Some News Sitemap Scripts Select Only Two Days

A PHP News sitemap might contain:

WHERE dt >= DATE_SUB(NOW(), INTERVAL 2 DAY)

This is deliberate.

Google's News sitemap guidance concerns recent news URLs and specifies the recent publication window for News sitemap entries.

Therefore code combining:

INTERVAL 2 DAY

with:

<news:news>

is a strong indication that the script was specifically designed as a Google News sitemap.

If the website does not publish news, such a sitemap is normally unnecessary.

27. Should an Unused News Sitemap Be Deleted?

Not necessarily.

If the file:

news_sitemap.php

exists but is not referenced anywhere, simply existing on the server does not mean it must be used.

Options include:

1. Keep it as an unused file for possible future use.
2. Take a backup and remove it if it serves no application purpose.
3. Reintroduce it later if the website launches a genuine news section.

Before deleting application files, always check whether another PHP script, scheduled task or application component depends on them.

28. Should a News Sitemap Be Added to robots.txt?

If the site does not have a genuine news publishing use case, there is no reason to advertise an unnecessary News sitemap.

Instead of:

Sitemap: https://knowledgebase.example.com/sitemap.php
Sitemap: https://knowledgebase.example.com/news_sitemap.php

a technical knowledgebase can simply use:

Sitemap: https://knowledgebase.example.com/sitemap.php

29. Recommended robots.txt for a PHP Knowledgebase

A practical configuration is:

User-agent: *
Allow: /

Disallow: /admin/
Disallow: /ajax/
Disallow: /dashboard.php
Disallow: /create_article.php
Disallow: /edit_article.php
Disallow: /login.php
Disallow: /search.php

Sitemap: https://knowledgebase.example.com/sitemap.php

This provides a clear structure:

Public articles → crawlable

Administrative pages → crawling discouraged

Internal search results → crawling discouraged

Primary sitemap → explicitly identified

30. Submit the Same Sitemap to Search Engines

The same valid XML sitemap can normally be submitted to multiple search-engine webmaster platforms.

For example:

https://knowledgebase.example.com/sitemap.php

can be submitted to:

• Google Search Console
• Microsoft Bing Webmaster Tools
• Yandex Webmaster

You do not need separate versions simply because different search engines are being used.

31. Sitemap Submission Does Not Guarantee Indexing

This distinction is important.

Submitting:

sitemap.php

helps a search engine discover URLs.

It does not force the search engine to index every article.

A search engine can discover an article and still decide not to index it.

Likewise, an indexed article is not guaranteed to rank highly.

32. Factors Beyond the Sitemap

After a technically correct sitemap has been established, more SEO attention should be directed toward the pages themselves.

Important factors include:

• Unique article titles
• Useful content
• Clear heading hierarchy
• Accurate meta descriptions
• Internal links
• Canonical URLs
• Mobile usability
• Page performance
• HTTPS
• Structured data where appropriate
• Avoidance of duplicate content
• Correct HTTP status codes
• Appropriate index/noindex directives
• Helpful images where relevant
• Accurate article modification dates

The sitemap is an important discovery mechanism, but it is only one part of SEO.

33. Avoid Duplicate Article URLs

Suppose the same article can be accessed through several URLs:

/view_article.php?id=100
/article.php?id=100
/?article=100
/view_article.php?id=100&utm_source=test

Search engines may need to determine which URL is canonical.

Ideally, the website should have one preferred URL for each article and use appropriate canonical tags where duplicate URL variations can occur.

The sitemap should contain only the preferred canonical URL.

34. Canonical Tags and Sitemaps Should Agree

If the sitemap contains:

https://knowledgebase.example.com/view_article.php?id=100

but the article declares:

<link rel="canonical"
href="https://knowledgebase.example.com/article/windows-guide">

the signals conflict.

The sitemap should ideally list URLs that the website itself considers canonical.

Consistency makes search-engine interpretation easier.

35. Don't Put Non-Indexable URLs in the Sitemap

Avoid including URLs that are:

• Blocked from normal public access
• Redirecting unnecessarily
• Returning 404
• Returning 5xx errors
• Marked noindex
• Administrative
• Duplicate/noncanonical versions
• Login-only pages

The sitemap should primarily represent high-quality URLs that you genuinely want search engines to index.

36. Dynamic Sitemaps Are Excellent for Knowledgebases

A PHP-generated sitemap has an important advantage.

When a new article is published:

Article ID 2001

the database query automatically finds it:

SELECT id
FROM articles
WHERE status=1

and the next sitemap request can automatically contain:

<url>
    <loc>https://knowledgebase.example.com/view_article.php?id=2001</loc>
</url>

No administrator has to manually edit an XML file.

37. Keep the Sitemap Fast

Because sitemap.php queries the database whenever requested, the SQL query should remain efficient.

For example:

SELECT id, updated_at
FROM articles
WHERE type='0'
AND status=1
ORDER BY id DESC

Indexes on frequently queried columns can become useful as the database grows.

A sitemap generating only a few thousand records should generally be straightforward for a properly configured database.

38. Avoid HTML Errors Inside XML Output

One danger with PHP-generated sitemaps is that a PHP warning or database error can corrupt the XML.

For example:

Warning: mysqli_query(): ...

appearing before:

<?xml version="1.0"?>

can make the response invalid as a sitemap.

Production servers should therefore be configured so that PHP errors are logged rather than dumped into public XML responses.

39. Test the Sitemap Directly

Open:

https://knowledgebase.example.com/sitemap.php

and verify that it returns XML rather than:

• HTML error pages
• PHP warnings
• Database errors
• Login pages
• 403 errors
• 404 errors
• 500 errors

The HTTP response should be successful and the output should be valid XML.

40. Recommended Final Architecture

A clean technical Knowledgebase architecture can look like:

knowledgebase.example.com
│
├── robots.txt
│
│   └── Sitemap: /sitemap.php
│
├── sitemap.php
│   │
│   ├── Homepage
│   ├── Article 1
│   ├── Article 2
│   ├── Article 3
│   └── All other published/indexable articles
│
├── view_article.php
│
├── search.php
│
├── login.php
│
├── dashboard.php
│
└── admin/

The objective is simple:

SEARCH ENGINES
       ↓
   robots.txt
       ↓
   sitemap.php
       ↓
Published Knowledge Articles
       ↓
 Crawl → Evaluate → Index → Rank

Recommended Configuration Summary

For a standard PHP-based technical knowledgebase:

Use a separate robots.txt for the subdomain: Yes

Allow public article crawling: Yes

Block administrative crawling: Yes

Consider blocking internal search-result crawling: Yes

Reference the real sitemap URL in robots.txt: Yes

Can the sitemap be sitemap.php?: Yes

Must it be named sitemap.xml?: No

Use accurate <lastmod> values: Yes

Automatically use today's date for unchanged pages: No

Use <priority> for Google ranking: No

Use a Google News sitemap without news content: Generally no

Submit the normal sitemap to Google: Yes

Submit it to Bing: Yes

Submit it to Yandex: Yes

Keep published/indexable URLs in the sitemap: Yes

Include administrative pages in the sitemap: No

FAQ

1. Is robots.txt mandatory for a website?

No. A website can be crawled without a robots.txt file. However, it is useful for communicating crawler restrictions and sitemap locations.

2. Does the main domain's robots.txt control a subdomain?

No. A subdomain is a separate host for robots.txt purposes and can have its own robots.txt file.

3. Can my sitemap be called sitemap.php?

Yes. A sitemap does not have to end with .xml. A PHP script can dynamically generate valid sitemap XML.

4. Is sitemap.xml better than sitemap.php for SEO?

Not simply because of the extension. Search engines care about the valid sitemap response and its contents.

5. Should sitemap.php return XML?

Yes. An appropriate response is:

header('Content-Type: application/xml; charset=UTF-8');

6. Can the same sitemap be submitted to Google and Bing?

Yes. A standards-compliant sitemap can be used with multiple search engines.

7. Can it also be submitted to Yandex?

Yes, provided it is accessible and valid.

8. Should admin pages appear in the sitemap?

No. Administrative and private application URLs generally should not be included.

9. Should login.php be in the sitemap?

No.

10. Should create_article.php and edit_article.php be indexed?

Normally no. These are application-management pages rather than public knowledge content.

11. Should internal search pages be crawled?

Often there is little SEO benefit in crawling large numbers of internal search-result URLs. Blocking /search.php may be appropriate depending on the site's architecture.

12. Does Disallow make a page secure?

No. robots.txt is not an access-control system. Sensitive pages must be protected by authentication and server-side authorization.

13. What does User-agent: * mean?

It means the following crawler rules apply broadly to compliant bots unless more specific rules apply.

14. What does Allow: / mean?

It indicates that crawling is generally allowed from the site's root, subject to specific Disallow rules.

15. What is <lastmod>?

It indicates the date on which a URL was last significantly modified.

16. Should <lastmod> always contain today's date?

No. It should represent a genuine significant modification date.

17. What if I don't know the homepage modification date?

It is better to omit <lastmod> than to generate an inaccurate new date every day.

18. What if an old article is substantially rewritten?

Its <lastmod> should ideally reflect the significant update date.

19. Should I have an updated_at database field?

It is highly useful for a knowledgebase whose articles are periodically revised.

20. Can I use the publication date as <lastmod>?

Yes when it is genuinely the most recent meaningful modification date. Once the article is updated, an actual modification timestamp is preferable.

21. What does COALESCE(updated_at, created_at) do?

It uses updated_at when available and falls back to created_at otherwise.

22. Does sitemap priority improve Google rankings?

Do not treat <priority> as a Google ranking mechanism.

23. Can I remove <priority>?

Yes. A sitemap does not require it.

24. Is <changefreq> mandatory?

No.

25. How many URLs can one sitemap contain?

The Sitemap Protocol permits up to 50,000 URLs in a single sitemap, subject also to its uncompressed size limit.

26. What happens after 50,000 URLs?

Split the URLs across multiple sitemap files and use a sitemap index.

27. Do I need a sitemap index for 2,000 articles?

Normally no. A single sitemap is easily within the URL-count limit.

28. What is news_sitemap.php?

If it outputs the Google News XML namespace and <news:news> elements, it is a Google News sitemap generator.

29. Do technical tutorials need a News sitemap?

Normally not merely because they were recently published.

30. Should I submit a News sitemap if I don't operate a news section?

Generally no. Use the standard sitemap for normal knowledgebase content.

31. Why does a News sitemap select articles from the last two days?

Google's News sitemap format is designed around recently published news URLs.

32. Can I keep news_sitemap.php on the server?

Yes, but if it is unused, there is no need to advertise or submit it. Check application dependencies before deleting it.

33. Should robots.txt contain the News sitemap?

Only when the News sitemap serves a genuine purpose for the website.

34. Does submitting a sitemap guarantee indexing?

No. Submission assists discovery. Search engines still decide whether individual URLs should be indexed.

35. Does indexing guarantee ranking?

No. Ranking depends on many additional relevance, quality and technical factors.

36. Should draft articles appear in the sitemap?

No. Only published/indexable articles should normally be included.

37. Is status=1 useful in a sitemap database query?

Yes, if status=1 reliably means that the article is published and publicly accessible.

38. Should deleted articles remain in the sitemap?

No. URLs that no longer represent valid indexable content should normally be removed.

39. Can dynamic PHP URLs rank in Google?

Yes. A URL such as view_article.php?id=100 can be crawled and indexed. The .php extension itself does not prevent ranking.

40. Should sitemap URLs match canonical URLs?

Yes. Sitemap URLs should ideally be the preferred canonical versions.

41. What happens if the sitemap contains noncanonical URLs?

It sends conflicting signals and can make crawling/indexing less efficient.

42. Should redirected URLs be included?

Generally, submit the final canonical destination rather than unnecessary redirecting URLs.

43. Should 404 pages be included?

No.

44. Should noindex pages be included?

Generally no. A sitemap intended for indexing should not advertise URLs that simultaneously request exclusion from indexing.

45. Why use ENT_XML1 in PHP?

It helps correctly encode special characters for XML output.

46. Why cast article IDs to (int)?

It ensures that numeric article identifiers are output as integers and avoids inserting unexpected string content into generated URLs.

47. Can PHP warnings break a sitemap?

Yes. Warnings, notices or HTML error output inserted into XML can make the sitemap invalid.

48. Should sitemap generation errors be displayed publicly?

Prefer logging production errors rather than inserting debugging output into the XML response.

49. After fixing robots.txt, what should I focus on next?

Focus on article quality, titles, meta descriptions, canonical tags, internal linking, structured data where appropriate, page performance, duplicate URLs and accurate modification dates.

50. What is the ideal setup for a technical knowledgebase?

A straightforward arrangement is:

robots.txt
     ↓
sitemap.php
     ↓
Published canonical articles
     ↓
Google / Bing / other crawlers
     ↓
Indexing evaluation
     ↓
Search visibility

The goal is not to create as many sitemap files as possible. The goal is to give search engines clean, accurate and consistent information about the content you actually want indexed.

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