Question about Multi-Locale/Lang Sitemaps
-
If you have one site with multiple language and locale variations how best should one approach the sitemaps. Here is what I believe the options to be:
-
sitemap_index.xml which includes all of the difference lang/locale sitemaps on the site
-
create 1 main sitemap that includes the rel=alternate href lang for ever alternate page to the main US version.
-
Do the sitemap_index.xml for all the other sitemaps and also include the rel=alternate href lang in those separate ones as well.
I have these in this order because it goes from least to most work....Thoughts folks?
-
-
Nope, you can just have a regular sitemap with all of the urls. Then on the actual pages, declare the localities via the hreflang tag.
Overall, you should declare the location associations on either the pages, the sitemap, or ideally, both. The more direction you can give crawlers, the easier it would be to understand.
-
For #1 you are saying both have the href lang on the page and the Sitemap?
-
You can do #1 if the actual pages have the hreflang tags on them
#2 = suggested by G
#3 = most likely to index all pages and associations
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
-
No Appreciable Effect of Moz Local?
I've been using Moz Local for over a year and these are the results for $129?! ... https://moz.com/products/local/check-listing?ubrecheckid=152151793&ubrechecktoken=zc2pg9Ic2qkADDYL Please advise.
Local SEO | | ianpritchardphd0 -
Considering Switching Domain from .ca to .com for Service Area Business - What is the Risk / Reward?
Hello, Thank you to anyone who takes the time to share their thoughts on this. I will preface this by saying that I am very new to the community and have lots to learn, so please forgive any obvious errors on my part. That having been said am very happy to receive positive criticism and feedback 🙂 Quick Background: We are a high end mobile wellness business based in Toronto Canada offering in home/office servicing including: yoga, pilates, nutrition, meditation, chiropractors, etc... As we are expanding we are transitioning form new leads coming from business partners and word of mouth to driving new business online As such we have an new Squarespace site (which is the first site I ever built, so any feedback is welcome) and are venturing into social media, SEO, local citations etc... for the first time We have a significant content catalogue originally for client and instructor education that we are now repurposing for this new digital adventure but have not yet deployed While currently focused in Torotno, we have plans to expand to several other countries in the next two years. As the site is quite new and we have little content or incoming links I was thinking now is the time to switch to .com from .ca before we roll out Website: www.anahana.ca Risk Reward? & Other Issues? Both domains are currently verified with Squarespace, and it seems easy enough to switch. What could blow up by making this switch which I might not be aware of? Our emails and business card use the .ca, but I don't think this would matter too much 6-12 months out... is there something else I might be missing on this? .com and using subfolders or subdomains as opposed to country specific TLDs ? This is something I am still working on understanding, but from what I have learned thus far, if we are going to progressively roll out a large content library, is it not better from an SEO standpoint to have this all in one domain? Local SEO and legal considerations for TLDs when operating local Service Area Businesses. I am sure there are many other angles here that I am missing and am not really looking for any hard answer on much of this, but any general advice, suggested resources, and experienced insights would be extremely helpful. Thanks so much, cj
Local SEO | | CJ7770 -
Moz Local Reporting - What are you doing?
I am a pro when it comes to reporting for paid search. However we came out with a new local product and use Moz Local. What are you doing for reporting? Automated reports? Are you tracking progress over time? Is there a reporting application that automates the process?
Local SEO | | PSLab0 -
How can I personalize content based on a state/region? Is it possible?
I'm getting a lot of traffic from different regions throughout the US. I need to personalize the content in my website or on a certain landing page based on the users state/region. Is it possible? For example, forwarding a user that lands on page "x" to page "y" if he's from California and to page "z" if he's from South Carolina. And of course, can this somehow affect my rankings in Google? Thanks!!
Local SEO | | OrendaLtd0 -
Local SEO Mastermind Group?
Howdy Folks - I run a small (but growing!) SEO agency in Tennessee. I serve, primarily, local service businesses with Organic SEO and website development. I'm a completely self taught SEO and had an average client rank last year of just over position 2. I have long been dedicated to running my own SEO experiments to try to stay on top of what is working. With the constant changes to SEO, and the growing agency, I find I don't have the time to run all of the SEO experiments that I'd like to ensure that our packages are still giving the best value to our clients. I'm looking to see if 1 - 4 individuals, also running local SEO agencies, would like to form a sort of "mastermind group". Share ideas, successes and failures on a level that wouldn't be practical in a forum setting. I'm happy to share what has been working for my clients and would welcome a fresh set of eyes to see what we're missing. **Discussions like: ** Link Acquisition Scaling Staff, Content Creation and Systems Scaling Social Media Outreach Local Outreach Successes - Email Templates White/Black Hat SEO Techniques If you think it would be a good fit. Please PM me or comment. Thanks!
Local SEO | | CRO_first1 -
How to get links for boring niches/industries?
I've asked this question before, but it's 12/18 months on, the SEO landscape has changed, and new people are aboard. So basically, how do others look/achieve links for industries that generally have static sites with little to report. My books are awash with forklift truck, accountants, concrete companies. Very little happens in their businesses - someone orders concrete... my client delivers concrete. Someone orders a forklift.... my client sends a forklift..... Yes, we can do a bit of social, but where else would people go for link building. If my client was a wedding photographer, a mountain climber or cancer specialist, I'd be rolling in ideas, as it is, I find myself a little stumped sometimes.
Local SEO | | Gordon_Hall0 -
Im a big fan of niche web develop/seo companies. I was wondering how many clients can you ethically take on in the same field, located in the same city
How do niche web development companies justify having multiple clients in the same field in the same cities. I would love an explanation on how to justify this, and how many clients in the same field/same city is acceptable. A good example would be an seo company for auto dealers or hotels. Thanks
Local SEO | | aholyman0 -
Keyword Question - Metro Suburb
My question is about keyword selection for a small divorce law firm located outside of a major city. My firm focuses only on family law matters, such as divorce, child support, child custody, and paternity. Divorce cases generate the most revenue. We are located outside of the Orlando, Florida metro area, in a small town about 15 miles west of Orlando. My keyword research shows a significant amount of traffic for keywords including Orlando, such as Orlando Divorce Lawyer, Divorce Attorney Orlando, and Orlando Divorce Attorney. For my location, Winter Garden, Florida, the search volume is reported as "0" using Moz's Keyword Difficulty tool. When I use other tools, such as Google Keyword Planner, the reported volume for my physical location and surrounding cities, other than Orlando, shows a volume of "0." We do get potential clients contacting us indicating that they found us via a Google search, and I know that we are ranking well in local search results. That's the good news. However, we are trying to increase the volume of potential clients contacting us, and it seems that the way to do that is to rank well for searches including the word "Orlando." I know that ranking in the local results for Orlando is out of the question because my office is not physically located in Orlando. However, it does not seem to make sense to target keywords for organic search including my location and the surrounding cities because the search volume appears to be next to nothing. So my questions are as follows: Even though the search terms with high traffic seem to be quite competitive and my office is not located in Orlando, should I still target keywords including the Orlando location? How should a small business approach this strategy as far as keyword usage and organization of the website? Should I have a city landing page for Orlando or should I target my main pages using keywords including "Orlando" and build city pages for the smaller, surrounding cities? Thanks in advance for the help. My website is located at http://www.thegrossmanlawoffice.com
Local SEO | | ajgrossman0