You "can" resubmit sitemap to Google

Should this be "must"?

[Simon_nw]

In the Webmaster help pages under "submitting and maintaining Google Sitemap files," there are two very similar entries, with similar instructions ... "When your sitemap changes, you can resubmit it to Google to let us know."

Question is, if you change your sitemap, do you have to resubmit to get it actioned, or does this happen automatically the next time Google crawls your site?

[vanessafox]

Hi Simon,

If you resubmit your Sitemap, we'll download the latest version to pick up the changes. If you don't resubmit your Sitemap, we'll still periodically check it to see if it's changed, and download it if it has.

[Bewenched]

My sitemaps show the date that they were last downloaded by google. Most of them show every couple of days.. there's a few that don't have the last modified date in them and they are downloaded about once every couple of weeks or so.

[Simon_nw]

Yup, I thought so, thanks.

[predator]

mine autosubmits every 24 hours to the google page..an hour after my sitemap is regenerated via cron.

It seems to mean that google picks up my pages pretty quickly, and visits each day.

So I think hitting the link is maybe not a bad idea?

[abates]

I've been wondering that myself, since sitemaps keeps insisting that I have a URL in my sitemap which I removed a month ago, yet it says it downloaded the sitemap more recently...

[vite_rts]

Hi Vannessa Fox

If a site has been updated, but the sitemap has not been updated, for example THE XML sitemaps show "last edited" date

would this cause googlebot not to visit an update the site.

Do you see what i mean,

If one fails to update the sitemap, one's site would not be updated on google

Is this correct or wrong

[europeforvisitors]

If one fails to update the sitemap, one's site would not be updated on google

That shouldn't be a problem if Googlebot is able to crawl independently of the sitemap.

When I publish new articles and link to them from the home page or a major section page, they're usually crawled and indexed within 48 hours--even though I don't remember to update my sitemap very often.

[Simon_nw]

I've been wondering that myself, since sitemaps keeps insisting that I have a URL in my sitemap which I removed a month ago, yet it says it downloaded the sitemap more recently...

I've got that too.

I changed the name of a file from press.html to press_2006.html as follows:

Submitted in sitemap 2nd Feb 2006 ------- press.html
Submitted in sitemap 7th July 2006 ------- press_2006.html
Submitted in sitemap 17th August 2006 --- press_2006.html

Google currently reports ...

press.html In Sitemap 404 (Not found) [?] Aug 15, 2006

I think it will disappear soon.