Proper naming convention when updating sitemaps

[jcgoodrich]

I have a semi-big site (500K pages) with lots of new pages being created. I also have a process that updates my sitemap with all of these pages automatically. I have 11 sitemap files and a sitemap index file. When I update my sitemaps and submit them to Google, should I keep the same names?

[David-Kley]

Yes, unless you have a compelling reason to change them. By changing the names you are just creating more work for yourself. Was there a reason you were wanting to name them something different?

Changing the name (if you choose to do so) of the sitemap is not going to have an effect on already-indexed URL's. I dont see any reason that you should modify the names unless you are trying to organize them better