How to set up regional XML sitemaps for international site?

[schmutz]

Hi we currently have the following set up:
https://www.example.com/sitemapindex.xml
and each regional sitemap is at:
https://www.example.com/content/dam/sitemaps/sitemap-au.xml
https://www.example.com/content/dam/sitemaps/sitemap-nz.xml
https://www.example.com/content/dam/sitemaps/sitemap-us.xml
etc...

I am guessing the best way to have them is using the following structure which follows the regional subdirectory structure of the site:
https://www.example.com/au/sitemap.xml

Is this correct? And do we need to shift them or can we simply implement a 301 from the existing location to the correct locations?

Excuse me if this is a silly question :)

[keyplyr]

Hello schmutz and welcome to WebmasterWorld [webmasterworld.com]

the best way to have them... follows the regional subdirectory structure of the site

I agree, but probably more for site management. Googlebot would not care.

Hopefully someone with this experience will comment.

[schmutz]

Thank you!

[tangor]

The site map is "top of this hierarchy then down" and you can have as many sitemaps as you like (well, up to 50,000 sitemaps and a max of 2 billion entries)

Place your site maps where they make sense. eg

example.com/au
example.com/nz
example.com/us

Each can have a sitemap, or host a sitemap INDEX which links to expressed sitemaps from there.

Theoretically these will assist search engines. Real world empirical evidence indicates this is marginal, at best.

Takeaway is to place your "regional" sitemap at the top of the regional folder to expose all you demand to be known based on that sitemap.

Other side is search engines these days are smart and will index all visible and shared links (that's your back link profile) and then (if you have one) compare those findings to your sitemap, but always relying on their OWN spidering as that is the crux of the matter.