Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Hreflang in vs. sitemap?
-
Hi all,
I decided to identify alternate language pages of my site via sitemap to save our development team some time. I also like the idea of having leaner markup.
However, my site has many alternate language and country page variations, so after creating a sitemap that includes mostly tier 1 and tier 2 level URLs, i now have a sitemap file that's 17mb. I did a couple google searches to see is sitemap file size can ever be an issue and found a discussion or two that suggested keeping the size small and a really old article that recommended keeping it < 10mb.
Does the sitemap file size matter? GWT has verified the sitemap and appears to be indexing the URLs fine.
Are there any particular benefits to specifying alternate versions of a URL in vs. sitemap?
Thanks,
-Eugene
-
I have always preferred in the sitemap because it keeps potential lines of code off your page. Everything helps when it comes to page speed.
However, if it's easier for you to put the tags on page, that's is completely valid. Do whatever is easiest to maintain and update.
-
First off if you want to keep the sitemap file, consider breaking it down to multiple files, one for each language/country etc...
Also FYI there are THREE methods, you can also add hreflang to the http header. This might be a good options as well to consider.
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
-
Best Permalinks for SEO - Custom structure vs Postname
Good Morning Moz peeps, I am new to this but intending on starting off right! I have heard a wealth of advice that the "post name" permalink structure is the best one to go with however... i am wondering about a "custom structure" combing the "post name" following the below example structure: Www.professionalwarrior.com/bodybuilding/%postname/ Where "professional" and "bodybuilding" is my focus/theme/keywords of my blog that i want ranked. Thanks a mill, RO
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RawkingOut0 -
Subdomains vs directories on existing website with good search traffic
Hello everyone, I operate a website called Icy Veins (www.icy-veins.com), which gives gaming advice for World of Warcraft and Hearthstone, two titles from Blizzard Entertainment. Up until recently, we had articles for both games on the main subdomain (www.icy-veins.com), without a directory structure. The articles for World of Warcraft ended in -wow and those for Hearthstone ended in -hearthstone and that was it. We are planning to cover more games from Blizzard entertainment soon, so we hired a SEO consultant to figure out whether we should use directories (www.icy-veins.com/wow/, www.icy-veins.com/hearthstone/, etc.) or subdomains (www.icy-veins.com, wow.icy-veins.com, hearthstone.icy-veins.com). For a number of reason, the consultant was adamant that subdomains was the way to go. So, I implemented subdomains and I have 301-redirects from all the old URLs to the new ones, and after 2 weeks, the amount of search traffic we get has been slowly decreasing, as the new URLs were getting index. Now, we are getting about 20%-25% less search traffic. For example, the week before the subdomains went live we received 900,000 visits from search engines (11-17 May). This week, we only received 700,000 visits. All our new URLs are indexed, but they rank slightly lower than the old URLs used to, so I was wondering if this was something that was to be expected and that will improve in time or if I should just go for subdomains. Thank you in advance.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | damienthivolle0 -
When to Use Schema vs. Facebook Open Graph?
I have a client who for regulatory reasons cannot engage in any social media: no Twitter, Facebook, or Google+ accounts. No social sharing buttons allowed on the site. The industry is medical devices. We are in the process of redesigning their site, and would like to include structured markup wherever possible. For example, there are lots of schema types under MedicalEntity: http://schema.org/MedicalEntity Given their lack of social media (and no plans to ever use it), does it make sense to incorporate OG tags at all? Or should we stick exclusively to the schemas documented on schema.org?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Allie_Williams0 -
Would it be better to Start Over vs doing a Website Migration?
Hey guys /gals I have a question please. I have a computer repair business that does extremely well in search and is on the front page of google for anything computer repair related. However, I am currently re-branding my company and have completely redesigned every aspect of the UI and the SEO Site structure as well as the fact that I have completely written vastly different content and different title tag lines and meta descriptions for each page. So basically when doing a migration we know that we want to keep our content, titles, headlines and meta descriptions the same as to not lose our page rank. Seeing that I have completely went against the grain in all directions on a much needed company re-branding and everything is completely different from the old site is it even worthwhile 301 redirecting my old urls to the new ones that would (best) correspond with the new? In the plainest English, would I do better at Ranking the New Website QUICKER without doing 301 redirects from the OLD to the NEW? In an EXTREME instance like what I have done, would the Domain Migration IMPEDED me ranking the new site seeing how nothing is the same? I have build a Rock solid SILO Site Architecture on the New site which is WordPress using the Thesis Framework and the old domain is built on JOOMLA 1.5 Thank fellas Marshall
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MarshallThompson0 -
Canonical URLs and Sitemaps
We are using canonical link tags for product pages in a scenario where the URLs on the site contain category names, and the canonical URL points to a URL which does not contain the category names. So, the product page on the site is like www.example.com/clothes/skirts/skater-skirt-12345, and also like www.example.com/sale/clearance/skater-skirt-12345 in another category. And on both of these pages, the canonical link tag references a 3rd URL like www.example.com/skater-skirt-12345. This 3rd URL, used in the canonical link tag is a valid page, and displays the same content as the other two versions, but there are no actual links to this generic version anywhere on the site (nor external). Questions: 1. Does the generic URL referenced in the canonical link also need to be included as on-page links somewhere in the crawled navigation of the site, or is it okay to be just a valid URL not linked anywhere except for the canonical tags? 2. In our sitemap, is it okay to reference the non-canonical URLs, or does the sitemap have to reference only the canonical URL? In our case, the sitemap points to yet a 3rd variation of the URL, like www.example.com/product.jsp?productID=12345. This page retrieves the same content as the others, and includes a canonical link tag back to www.example.com/skater-skirt-12345. Is this a valid approach, or should we revise the sitemap to point to either the category-specific links or the canonical links?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 379seo0 -
800 Number vs. Local Phone
I have a client with multiple locations throughout the US. They are currently using different 800 numbers on their site for their different locations. As they try to optimize their local presence but submitting to local directories, we are trying to determine two things: Does having a local number reroute to an 800 number devalue the significance of it being a local number (I've never heard of this, but someone told them it did) Locality and consistency are important. Assuming they can't remove the 800 numbers from the site, are they better off keeping the 800 numbers on their site and using local numbers every else online OR just using the 800 numbers for all of their local listings?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Caleone0 -
Wordtracker vs Google Keyword Tool
When I find keyword opportunities in Wordtracker, I'll sometimes run them through Adwords Keyword tool only to find that Google says these keywords have 0 search volume. Would you use these keywords even though Google says users aren't searching for them?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicole.healthline0 -
Factors that affect Google.com vs .ca
Though my company is based in Canada, we have a .com URL, we're hosted on servers in the U.S., and most of our customers are in the U.S. Our marketing efforts are focused on the U.S. Heck, we even drop the "u" in "colour" and "favour"! 🙂 Nonetheless we rank very well in Google.ca, and rather poorly on Google.com. One hypothesis is that we have more backlinks from .ca domains than .com, but I don't believe that to be true. For sure, the highest quality links we have come from .coms like NYTimes.com. Any suggestions on how we can improve the .com rankings, other than keeping on with the link building?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RobM4161