XML Sitemap on another domain

[WMCA]

Hi,

We've rebuilt our website and created a better sitemap index structure. There's a good chance that we not be able to append the XML files to existing site for technical reasons (don't get me started).

I'm reaching out because I'm wondering if can we place the XML files on another website or subdomain? I know this is not best practice and probably very grey but I'm looking for alternatives.

If there answer is DON'T DO IT let me know too.

Thx

[Kara.Wallace]

If you cannot create and update an XML sitemap for your site, you should consider creating an HTML sitemap. While you cannot submit an HTML sitemap to search engines, spiders can crawl your HTML sitemap and crawl pages deeper into your site.

Matt Cutts says that if you can only do 1 type of sitemap, do an HTML one, because it helps both users and bots.

Hope this helps.

Mike

[AlanMosley]

I agree with mike, but I am curious why you cant have a xml sitemap, maybe you need to chage hosting

[WMCA]

Thx Mike and we already have the HTML sitemap ready to go.

Alan - I don't know all the details but they just informed me, they were able to create them on the proper URL.

Sorry for the futile exercise but good to know either way.

[Milian]

You can actually host sitemap.xml files on external domains, you just need too verify them all in Web Master tools.

Guidelines here from Google: Sitemaps for multiple sites

[AlanMosley]

I read a post by bings Duane Forrester where he explained that they will lose trust in your site map if it has errors more then 2%. all entries should return status code 200, no 404's or redirects.

He also said that you should not include all pages, just places where you want bing to start crawling from, or where you want to discover links.