Multilingual Sitemap with some non-matching URLs
-
The website has two languages, English (.com/en-int/) and French (.com/fr-fr/).
Some pages only exist in French, and some only in English, but there are many that are a 1-to-1 match. So, my questions is, in the multilingual sitemap, should I only include the URLs that are alternates, and then create a 2nd sitemap for all non-matching URLs?
Or should I have 3 sitemaps: 1) Multilingual sitemap for all matching URLs (https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/26208650 , 2) English sitemap for only URLs not included in multilingual sitemap, 3) French sitemap for only URLs not included in multilingual sitemap. And then create a sitemap index file to link to all 3 sitemaps.
-
Thanks for your response Oleg. But if I separate matching URLs into different sitemaps, then doesn't that go against what Google recommends by including them in 1 multilingual sitemap?
-
you should have 1 sitemap index and 2 sitemaps.. 1 for English and 1 for French, and the index that links to them both.
If a page has an equivalent, include the rel="alternate" meta data. If not, don't include any meta data (just do the generic ones = loc, freq, priority)
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
-
Using same URL for both "en" and "en-us" hreflang tags
Hi,I have a question. Is it okay if I use the same URL for both "en" and "en-us" hreflang tags? For example, for my en-us page: Is this okay with Google? What are your thoughts on this?
International SEO | | Avid_Demand0 -
International SEO setup issues canonical URL
My site is www.grocare.com for one region and in.grocare.com for another region. Both of them have the same content except the currency for particular regions. Someone told me that google will take the content as duplicate and not rank either. I have setup hreflang and targeted different regions for both in the search console. I read many article which say canonical urls need to be setup for international seo sites. But Im not sure how to setup canonical urls and whether they are the right way to go . i just don't want my content deranked. Now i have setup hreflang properly after asking the moz community itself. So im hoping to get some help with this query too. TIA
International SEO | | grocare0 -
Url for Turkish, Russian, Chinese, Arabic, Vietnamese and Arabic websites
Hello ! We gonna release our next website with new amazing languages. However I was wondering, is it better to keep the url in English or I can translate them in : Turkish (should be fine) Chinese Arabic Vietnamese Arabic Russian All websites are properly translated but I'm hesitating for the url. Tks a lot !
International SEO | | AymanH0 -
URL Structure - Homepage, Country and State Pages
Hello, I am creating a website (or websites if best format) that will have state-specific boating license courses for every state in the US, Canada and Australia. I would like the content to be available on the website in English, French and Spanish. I want to be the global leader in providing boat test courses. For the (1) homepage, (2) country pages, and (3) state pages, what is best SEO format I should use for:
International SEO | | Monologix
(a) URL structure
(b) "href lang" code
(c) rel canonical code
(d) will meta content with non-English pages need to also be in the non-English language of that page? Also, what server company do you recommend I host my website with? I am a non-programmer and learning SEO, so any and all help will be greatly appreciated! Thank you very much in advance!!!0 -
Thai Characters in URL's
Does anyone have experience with non-Latin characters in URL's? We've launched a website in Thailand and picked Thai characters for URL's. However, when you copy it, it turns into something like this: http://www.imoneythailand.com/บัตรเครดิต Can it impact our website's crawlability? Also, is keyword in URL a ranking factor for non-Latin languages? Thanks in advance for help!
International SEO | | imoney0 -
Multinational URLs
Hi I'm wondering if the following URL structure using subdirectories would be alright to use on a multinational site. I have local products only in the local language and english. I plan to use: /uk/ - UK product in English (geo target in GWT to UK, href lang="en") /fr/ - French product in French (would geo target this in GWT to France, and hreflang="fr-FR") /fr-en/ - French product in English (no geo-targeting, hreflang ="en") /de/ - German product in German (would geo target this in GWT to Germany, and hreflang="de-DE") /de-en/ - German product in English (no geo-targeting, hreflang ="en") /at-de/ - Austrian product in German (would geo target this in GWT to Austria, and hreflang="at-DE") /at-en/ - Austrian product in English (no geo-targeting, hreflang ="en") Does the name of the subfolder matter? I've tried to keep the URL's shorter, so german users in Germany would get just /de/ rather than /de-de/, and have made the english version of the content the more ugly URL as it's used much, much less. The URL structures aren't really consistent here (ie. uk and fr-en are for english content, but are different in URL format) but I'm wondering if this is an issue, or if the above would be fine. Thanks!
International SEO | | pikka0 -
Multi-lingual Site (Tags & XML SiteMap Question)
We have two sites that target users in two different countries in different languages in the following manner: Site 1 es.site1.com - Spanish version Site 2 site2.com/francais/.............. Navigation and content are translated into the foreign language from English What is the best way to let Google know about these multi-lingual pages: A. Add the rel="alternate" and hreflang= in the source code for the hunders of pages we have. B. Or is there a tool we can use to crawl and create XML site maps for different language pages. What do we need to do in the XML site map so that Google know that sitemap1.xml for example relates to Spanish as an example many thanks
International SEO | | CeeC-Blogger0 -
Multilingual drupal 7
Hello, I'm in a trouble with a drupal 7 installation. It's multilingual. The problem is Google indexed some pages like this: example.com/es/node/100
International SEO | | jarizaro
example.com/fr/node/100
example.com/en/node/100 all of them, shows the same content, excepts menus, whose are in the current languages (depending of url: es, en, fr.. ). The question...: If a submit my sitemap, which not has those urls. Will google remove old example.com/xx/node/100 pages ? Or it'll retain them indexed. Do i must remove these indexed urls via the google remove url submissions form? Thanks.0