Missing xml tag error

[ang]

Our xml sitemap is divided up in to many smaller xml sitemaps so we have fewer products per sitemap, in order to easily identify errors.

A couple of weeks ago, we changed our xml sitemap by reordering some of the products. However, this has left some old xml sitemaps without any data, and they are no longer appearing in our xml sitemap. But, Google is still identifying these sitemaps since they once existed, and they are giving errors since they can't locate them. Should we 404 those xml sitemaps, or is there a better way to handle this?

[CleverPhD]

You need to 404 the old XML sitemaps.  Google loves to hang onto data in old sitemaps unless you 404 them.

These should help

https://www.lockedowndesign.com/prevent-google-from-crawling-old-sitemaps/

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/183669?hl=en