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I recently made some major revisions to sitemaps on a rather large site which was submitted via sitemap index. I tried resubmitting the index and even deleting it and submitting from scratch but the sitemap files themselves are still showing as "Processed" on the day the index was first submitted. Furthermore there seems to be no way to resubmit the individual sitemaps themselves.

How can I resubmit the sitemaps contained within an index file to let google know the sitemaps themselves have changed significantly?

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    You do not need to resubmit any sitemap ever unless your sitemap has changed file names. Otherwise, leave it alone. Google will see that it is updated and process it appropriately. As well, please do not think that a sitemap is important for much. It is not. For any site that can be crawled, the sitemap is only used to audit that the site can be crawled. Nothing more. Sitemaps are only necessary for extremely large sites and sites with a login or paywall. Otherwise, they do absolutely nothing for the site. So please do not sweat it! Cheers!!
    – closetnoc
    Commented Sep 28, 2016 at 3:12

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First, you should read closetnoc's comment under your answer.

You might consider using this route since actions have already been taken. This should speed up your wait period to show up on both Webmaster Tools and Google search.

Furthermore there seems to be no way to resubmit the individual sitemaps themselves.

  1. Submit the individual sitemaps in your Google Webmaster Tools console.

    • making sure no sitemaps contains over 50k links or larger than 10 megs.

    • using the process as the original sitemap > test/verify sitemap > add sitemap > fetch / render > submit to index

  2. Make sure all the sitemaps URLs in the sitemap index file does match the sitemap location.

  3. Submit sitemap index file to Google as you would a normal single sitemap.

Good way to show search engines that you have or have not submitted sitemaps to as Google suggest.

Insert the following line anywhere in your robots.txt file, specifying the path to your sitemap for each sitemap and sitemap index file. 

    Sitemap: http://example.com/sitemap_location.xml

let google know the sitemaps themselves have changed significantly

A sitemap can be asked to get crawled again and is the good method for existing sitemaps:

Ask Google to crawl and index your URL

  1. Click Submit to Index, shown next the status of a recent, successful fetch in the Fetches Table.
  2. Select Crawl only this URL to submit one individual URL to the Google for re-crawling. You can submit up to 500 individual URLs in this way within a 30 day period.
  3. Select Crawl this URL and its direct links to submit the URL as well as all the other pages that URL links to for re-crawling. You can submit up to 10 of requests of this kind within a 30 day period.
  4. Click Submit to let Google know that your request is ready to be processed.

So again as mentioned by closetnoc, it is not necessary to resubmit the sitemap itself, but rather ask for it to be re crawled.

Also look at your crawl rates in your robots.txt. A Lot of new pages can slow your site down. So either set it to crawl at certain times (WMT) or place a crawl delay (robots.txt.

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    Thanks but I'm not looking for general help or suggestions relating to sitemaps. The only thing you suggested here that actually pertains to my questions seems to be wrong "Submit the individual sitemaps in your Google Webmaster Tools console". The purpose of a sitemap index is to avoid submitting 10 different sitemaps. Why would I submit the sitemaps and then submit the index?
    – Eaten by a Grue
    Commented Sep 28, 2016 at 8:00
  • To speed up your process, initially, as suggested. You should not have had to submit the first one again, you could have done that with a simple submit to index, so I explained it. None can tell you why Google will not show or does not show, only the proper steps, which I show. Since no mention of other sitemaps, how to take care of the remaining search engines, crawling your site and controlling server resources when it does start getting crawled. If you have taken all the steps all you can do is wait.
    – norcal johnny
    Commented Sep 28, 2016 at 8:10
  • "Furthermore there seems to be no way to resubmit the individual sitemaps themselves? . See your own reference to submitting them individually. You can submit them individually under the one account.
    – norcal johnny
    Commented Sep 28, 2016 at 8:13
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    yes, they conform to sitemap guidelines and the sites are verified. since i've stated that the sitemaps were already accepted and processed all of those things are a given.
    – Eaten by a Grue
    Commented Sep 28, 2016 at 14:58
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    @billynoah Google checks sitemaps often enough. Keep in mind that Google does not need your sitemap most of the time except for auditing so if it takes a week or so, then there is no real problem. Google prefers to crawl the site and will mostly ignore the sitemap. So worrying about a sitemap is stress you do not need. Instead, I suggest a beer or wine, a good cheese, bread and a salad, followed by your favorite steak with butter, onions and mushrooms. Then when done with that, take a nap. Rinse, repeat. ;-) Cheers!!
    – closetnoc
    Commented Sep 28, 2016 at 16:29

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