Submitting URLs multiple times in different sitemaps

[msquare]

We have a very dynamic site, with a large number of pages.

We use a sitemap index file, that points to several smaller sitemap files.

The question is: Would there be any issue if we include the same URL in multiple sitemap files?

Scenario:

URL1 appears on sitemap1.

2 weeks later, the page at URL1 changes and we'd like to update it on a sitemap.

Would it be acceptable to add URL1 as an entry in sitemap2?  Would there be any issues with the same URL appearing multiple times?

Thanks.

[JoshPugh]

Hi msquare,

According to Identity on a blog post about multiple sitemaps:

It is still just one URL, but the engines prefer to not have URLs duplicated across sitemaps.

In this way, you are sending a lower quality signal about your sitemaps. Certainly this can happen, like any duplication, but if it is rampant, hundreds-thousands of URLs duplicated across multiple sitemaps might lead the engines to believe that your are trying to manipulate them in some way and I wouldn't be surprised if they trusted the sitemaps less, which may defeat the purpose of having them in the first place.

I would argue the same. If you have two sitemaps with lots of similar content then it can be seen as inaccurate which is contrary to the point of the sitemap in the first place.

Have a read of that article too that I linked above, because there's a good introduction to multiple sitemaps and indexes, so that you can avoid as many problems as you can!