Site with geo-targeted sub-directories - single or separate Sitemaps?

[nikhil612]

I am in the process of developing my website where each sub-directory in the website will be dedicated to a country. I have a single sitemap for the entire site.
eg:
www.example.com/plumber/Australia
www.example.com/plumber/Japan

I have a single sitemap for the entire site.

I did some digging and fond that Google allows you to enter the above as a separate website in the webmaster tools and then geo target it to the country of your liking to optimize for that country.

The question I have is that, when I submit these URL's as a separate website in webmaster tools, I will also have to submit a sitemap for them.

So do I create a separate sitemap for the above URL's?
If so, then I will have the same page in the master sitemap as well as a sitemap dedicated for that sub directory.

I'm a bit new to all these things, so my question might not even make sense.

Thanks

[tedster]

Welcome to the forums, nikhil612.

It might be to your advantage to create separate xml site,aps for each geo-targeted directory because you'll get more granular information about indexing that way. However, you do not "need" to do that. One Sitemap will still serve the same function of giving Google the URLs you would like googblebot to discover.