Importance of Location of XML Sitemap

Continuing with XML sitemap from yesterday – an XML sitemap should always be placed in root domain if the entire website URLs are to be included in it. The location of sitemap determines the list of URLs it can contain. Only the pages from the directory in which it is placed, or its sub-directories can be included in it. For e.g., sitemap located at http://example.com/catagory1/sitemap.xml cannot contain URLs from http://example.com/catagory2/. This rule can be used to place a separate sitemap for a particular directory/folder.

XML Sitemaps can also be hosted on a different domain.  To exemplify, the sitemap of http://example.com can be hosted at http://exampleonline.com/sitemap.xml. But the location of sitemap should be mentioned in robots.txt or Webmaster Tools account of http://example.com.