Does It Matter Where Your Google XML Sitemap File Is Located? [Video]

I saw an interesting question about the location, directory, the XML sitemap is placed in. Does that matter to Google, and if so how? John Mueller from Google responded that it depends.

John said on Twitter it depends “on how they [the sitemap files] were discovered.” He said (a) If submitted via anonymous ping, they’re only valid there & lower levels and (b) If you submit them through your Search Console account, they can be valid for any verified site or part of a site.

Here are the tweets:

Depending on how they were discovered, yes. If submitted via anonymous ping, they’re only valid there & lower levels. If you submit them through your SC account, they can be valid for any verified site or part of a site.

— 🍌 John 🍌 (@JohnMu) September 4, 2018

Yes. If you submit sitemaps in Search Console, they can include URLs for any verified path in your account (on that …