Hreflang in header...should I do a Sitemap?
-
A client implemented hreflang tags in the site header. MOZ says you aren't supposed to do an hreflang Sitemap as well. My question is how should I do a Sitemap now (or should I do one at all)?
-
Hi there,
There are many ways to do it. In my opinion:
- If the amount of pages is low, you can do it in just one sitemap.
- If the amount is really huge, do it in different sitemaps, stating in the name of each of them the language (e.g. sitemap-es-mx.xml) and create a sitemap_index.hml with all those.
Remember that its best practice to have the sitemaps in the root folder: domain.com/sitemap
Best luck.
GR. -
Hi Gaston - Thanks for the response. My urls are set up like so:
- mysite.com/us/en/page
- mysite.com/fr/fr/page
- mysite.com/ca/fr/page
- mysite.com/mx/es/page
- mysite.com/es/es/page
And so on. Would you recommend doing a separate sitemap for each language/country? Thus:
- mysite.com/us/en/sitemap.xml
- mysite.com/fr/fr/sitemap.xml
- mysite.com/ca/fr/sitemap.xml
- mysite.com/mx/es/sitemap.xml
- mysite.com/es/es/sitemap.xml
Thanks!
-
Hello there!
Yes you should, better you must do a sitemap, but do not include the hreflang attribute.
Here: Google Search Console help you can see how a sitemap INCLUDING the hreflang looks like. Remove the portion:<xhtml:link <br="">rel="alternate"
hreflang="de"
href="http://www.example.com/deutsch/"
/></xhtml:link>Hope it helps.
Good Luck!
GR.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Confusing mixture of cross-domain and multi-language - HREFLANG
Hi Mozzers, I am working for an international client, in a highly regulated industry. As such, their international set-up is slightly confusing. They currently operate websites across multiple countries (with ccTLDs), as well as a global .com. E.g: domain.co.uk domain.it domain. es domain.com etc. Additionally, they offer multiple languages across each of these domains, which often cross over. E.g: domain.co.uk/en/, domain.co.uk/fr/, domain.co.uk/de/ domain.es/en/, domain.es/es/ domain.it/en/, domain.it/it/ domain.com/en/, domain.com/es/, domain.com/fr/, domain.com/de/ They are not currently using HREFLANG of any sort. Using EN as an example, this results in 6 URLs showing the same content, albeit for different languages/locations: Main URL domain.co.uk/en/category-A/ hreflang="en-GB" Multi-lingual variants from same domain... domain.co.uk/fr/category-A/ hreflang="fr-GB" domain.co.uk/de/category-A/ hreflang="de-GB" Cross domain variants from other ccTLDs... domain.es/en/category-A/ hreflang="en-ES" domain.it/en/category-A/ hreflang="en-IT" domain.com/en/category-A/ hreflang="en" Can anyone cleverer than myself confirm that the above would be the most effective set-up for this scenario, with each URL referencing each other in this way?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Pan12340 -
Are HTML Sitemaps Still Effective With "Noindex, Follow"?
A site we're working on has hundreds of thousands of inventory pages that are generally "orphaned" pages. To reach them, you need to do a lot of faceting on the search results page. They appear in our XML sitemaps as well, but I'd still consider these orphan pages. To assist with crawling and indexation, we'd like to create HTML sitemaps to link to these pages. Due to the nature (and categorization) of these products, this would mean we'll be creating thousands of individual HTML sitemap pages, which we're hesitant to put into the index. Would the sitemaps still be effective if we add a noindex, follow meta tag? Does this indicate lower quality content in some way, or will it make no difference in how search engines will handle the links therein?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mothner0 -
Add versioning to an xml sitemap?
Is there a way to add versioning to an xml sitemap? Something like <version>x.x</version> outside of the <urlset>?</urlset> I've looked at a bunch of sitemaps for various sites and don't see anyone adding versioning information, but it seems like it would be a common issue - I can't believe someone hasn't come up with some way to do it.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ATT_SEO0 -
Href lang in image or video XML sitemaps
Does anyone know if it is possible/recommended/not recommended to use href lang in image or video XML sitemaps? This had not crossed my mind until recently, but a client asked me this question and I couldn't find any information on this topic.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ChrisKing0 -
Sitemap and content question
This is our primary sitemap https://www.samhillbands.com/sitemaps/sitemap.xml We have a about 750 location based URL's that aren't currently linked anywhere on the site. https://www.samhillbands.com/sitemaps/locations.xml Google is indexing most of the URL because we submitted the locations sitemap directly for indexing. Thoughts on that? Should we just create a page that contains all of the location links and make it live on the site? Should we remove the locations sitemap from separate indexing...because of duplicate content? #
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | brianvest
Sitemap
Type
Processed
Issues
Items
Submitted
Indexed
---
---
---
---
---
---
---
---
---
1
/sitemaps/locations.xml
Sitemap
May 10, 2016
-
Web
771
648
2
/sitemaps/sitemap.xml
Sitemap index
May 8, 2016
-
Web
862
730
0 -
Can multiple geotargeting hreflang tags be set in one URL? International SEO question
Hi All, I have a question please. If i target www.onedirect.co.nl/en/ in English for Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg, are the tags below correct? English for Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg: http://www.example.co.nl/en/" hreflang="en-nl" /> http://www.example.co.nl/en/" hreflang="en-be" /> http://www.example.co.nl/en/" hreflang="en-lu" /> AND Targeting Holland and Belgium in Dutch: Pour la page www.onedirect.co.nl on peut inclure ce tag: http://www.example.co.nl" hreflang="nl-nl" /> http://www.example.co.nl" hreflang="nl-be" /> thanks a lot for your help!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Onedirect_uk0 -
Hreflang tag could solve any duplicate content problems on the different versions??
I have run across a couple of articles recently suggesting that using the hreflang tag could solve any SEO problems associated with having duplicate content on the different versions (.co.uk, .com, .ca, etc). here is an example here: http://www.emarketeers.com/e-insight/how-to-use-hreflang-for-international-seo/ Over to you and your technical colleagues, I think ….
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JordanBrown0 -
Sitemap for SmartPhone site
Hello I have a smartphone site (e.g.m.abc.com). To my understanding we do not need a mobile sitemap as its not a traditional mobile site. Shall I add those mobile site links in my regular www XML sitemap or not bother to add the links as we already have rel = canonical (on m.abc.com ) and rel= alternate in place (on www site) to respective pages. Please suggests a solution. I really look forward to an answer as I haven't found the "official" answer to this question anywhere.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AdobeVAS0