Are mobile annotation in PC xml sitemaps a replacement for mobile xml sitemaps?

[JasonOliveira]

These two links confused me as to what I should do...

https://developers.google.com/webmasters/smartphone-sites/details

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/34648?hl=en

[GregB123]

It will help to know more about your site. Do you have a subdomain like mobile.mysite.com that goes along with your normal desktop site? Or do you just change CSS based on screen width (responsive design)?

[JasonOliveira]

This is referring to a separate mobile domain like mobile.mysite.com. This is not responsive design.

[bridget.randolph]

Hi Jason,

The difference is:

a mobile sitemap is a sitemap showing the URLs of your separate mobile pages.

the mobile annotation you mentioned above, for the regular desktop sitemap, is just a way of indicating that there is an alternate version of the desktop page for mobile users (it's basically serving the same purpose as the rel=alternate 'switchboard' tags that go in the desktop page's HTML). You would still need to include the rel=canonical switchboard tag annotation in the mobile page's HTML.

Hope that helps!