Is it best to create multiple xml sitemaps for different sections of a site?

[MichaelWeisbaum]

I have a client with a very big site that includes a blog, videos, photo gallery, etc.  Is it best to create a separate xml file for each of these sections?  It seems to me like that would be the best way to keep everything organized.  Or at least separate the blog out from the main site.  Does anybody have any tips or recommendations? I'm not finding any good information about this.

[eseyo]

This is definitely a good idea.

I've just done exactly this for a large ecommerce site, as well as implement a new URL rewrite, and by adding this granularity to the sitemap you can really see which pages are being indexed and control it better.

There was a blog post here on SEOMoz which I used for guidance and that demonstrated how the improved site maps actually lead to increased site traffic. (http://www.seomoz.org/blog/multiple-xml-sitemaps-increased-indexation-and-traffic)

If you're a Wordpress user, checkout the Wordpress SEO plugin by yoast, as his site maps do exactly this and are set-out very nicely.