Does sitemaps have to have a capital S?

Question

Do I need capital S in sitemap_index.xml and sitemap.xml when submitting them, or doesn't it matter?

Thanks

Answer 1

If you submit the sitemap directly to a search engine, it does not matter at all.

Alternatively, you can declare the URL of the sitemap in your robots.txt like this:

Sitemap: <sitemap_url>

Using the full URL (including http:// prefix)

Answer 2

sitemap_index.xml should generally be in all lowercase at the root of your web server. I don't believe any of the submission forms for search engines care what the filename is at all.

Answer 3

That depends on the web server.

Some servers (e.g. Linux) differentiates between upper and lower case, so Sitemap.xml and sitemap.xml can exist in the same folder, and are separate from each other. Other servers (e.g. Windows) doesn't make a difference between upper and lower case, so Sitemap.xml and sitemap.xml reference the same file.

If you reference the site map from your robots.txt file, you can call it Mamma.mu if you lilke.