How to best set up international XML site map?
-
Hi everyone,
I've been searching about a problem, but haven't been able to find an answer.
We would like to generate a XML site map for an international web shop. This shop has one domain for Dutch visitors (.nl) and another domain for visitors of other countries (Germany, France, Belgium etc.) (.com). The website on the 2 domains looks the same, has the same template and same pages, but as it is targeted to other countries, the pages are in different languages and the urls are also in different languages (see example below for a category bags).
Example Netherlands:
Dutch domain: www.client.nl
Example Dutch bags category page: www.client.nl/tassenExample France:
International domain: www.client.com
Example French bags category page: www.client.com/sacsWhen a visitor is on the Dutch domain (.nl) which shows the Dutch content, he can switch country to for example France in the country switch and then gets redirected to the other, international .com domain. Also the other way round.
Now we want to generate a XML sitemap for these 2 domains. As it is the same site, but on 2 domains, development wants to make 1 sitemap, where we take the Dutch version with Dutch domain as basis and in the alternates we specify the other language versions on the other domain (see example below).
<loc>http://www.client.nl/tassen</loc>
<xhtml:link<br>rel="alternate"
hreflang="fr"
href="http://www.client.com/sacs"
/></xhtml:link<br>Is this the best way to do this? Or would we need to make 2 site maps, as it are 2 domains?
-
Hi.
Interesting, I didn't see that article. Well, then, I guess, it's matter of preference.
I'd still go with different sitemaps. cause managing them individually allows script and code based automation.
-
Hi Dmitrii,
Thanks for your reply. At first, I also thought that using multiple domains in one sitemap was not possible, however I came across this article from Google that mentions this possibility:
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/75712?hl=en
Does anyone have experience with this?
-
Hi.
Sitemaps are done per domain, that's for sure. And use of hreflang is just saying that "Here is a link to a different language version of the website you're on right now". So, it doesn't cover both websites.
Example:
You went to Paris and bought a map of Paris with labels all in french. As you're looking at that map, you have no clue what those labels say, since you can't speak/write/read French. Then you notice that at the bottom of this map there is a sentence "To buy a map of Paris in english, go to such-and-such store".
Now, does that sentence (reference) help you anyhow to translate what's on a map you're holding in your hands? No.The same thing with sitemaps. Reference to a different language version of the website doesn't pass the content of that website. Especially, since you have all URLs in different languages.
Long answer short - you'll need to sitemaps.
Hope this makes sense and helps.
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
-
Question regarding international SEO
Hi there, I have a question regarding international SEO and the APAC region in particular. We currently have a website extension .com and offer our content in English. However, we notice that our website hardly ranks in Google in the APAC region, while one of the main languages in that region is also English. I figure one way would be to set up .com/sg/ (or .com/au/ or .com/nz/), but then the content would still be in English. So wouldn't that be counted as duplicate content? Does anyone have experience in improving website rankings for various English-speaking countries, without creating duplicate content? Thanks in advance for your help!
International SEO | | Billywig0 -
International SEO & redirects - do these solutions make sense?
I’m currently working on SEO for an international website with subdirectories set up for each international version. The site is has never had any SEO previously and is having a lot of indexing and visibility issues. Also geotargeting seems very off in search results. I’ve diagnosed various issues and want to check my assumptions and solutions below make sense... The root domain uses a 302 redirect to display content from the /en-GB page. (302 redirects seem to be a default language fallback setting configured in the CMS) and they’re used for most key pages. I’m concerned these redirects are contributing to a lot of the issues with incorrect indexing. The en-GB is the default language version of the site. So far, the en-GB has been set as the canonical version too. Both the root domain and this subdirectory URL display the same content. (en-US is also a near duplicate page). All other international homepages appear only on their subfolder URL. Various SEO tools have been showing redirect loops (caused by language changing parameter versions of URLs being crawled that don’t have redirects on them) and issues with hreflang and canonicals. I believe the hreflang tags and canonicals have been ignored due to relative URLs being used for each, as search results don’t always contain the desired versions of the URLs (in terms of regional version and preferred canonical versions). My questions are: Could these 302 redirects be conflicting with hreflang tags? If so, I’m thinking they should be removed (if not made 301s). GSC doesn’t like the fact these are on key pages, as redirected pages are listed in the sitemap. Will changing hreflang tags and canonical tags to absolute URLs possibly be enough to fix these issues from what you can tell? (Or will redirects need to go too?) Is the en-GB correctly set as the canonical when the root domain is also accessible, indexed and using this page’s content within the CMS too? (I feel like the root domain should be the canonical version, but not sure that works together with other language version subfolders or with a redirect in place from root to subfolder). As an extra point to the last question, GSC has recently chosen the root domain as the canonical (despite en-GB being set as user preference) and is now choosing to deindex some international versions of the homepage as a result. Hoping that getting the hreflang tags fixed and possibly redirects removed should correct this ASAP. But perhaps this also confirms en-GB should be the canonical and marked X-default too. I hope that all makes sense and sorry it’s a small collection of related questions. Really appreciate any replies.
International SEO | | MMcCalden0 -
Ecommerce Product Page Optimization & International SEO
Hello, I'm working on our website SEO optimization. We have a thousands of products pages with different structures for the languages (arg) and very depth folder path .com/[folder]/[folder]/[folder]/product1.hmtl So now I have the happiness of working on the optimization of the website with themajor risk of impacting all current ranking. But anyway, here are a few questions I have on the way. Part 1 - International URL Our websites target people per country and languages. We do not have shops per countries (not enough resources_) but we try to get at least website per languages. What could be the best option?_ Url Parameters +hreflang So we save one folder less and the proper setup. But I'm just scared it's gonna be too messy for Google URL:.com/product1**?lang=fr** Product page:link rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href=".com/product1" / Language folder + hreflang one folder more but clearer structure URL:.com**/fr/**product1 **Product **page:****link rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href=".com/product1" / Part 2 - Product URL Our website is structure per categories so the product comes after. However, I've seen a lot of websites recently removing the categories to save folders space. What should be the most efficient option? Category folder It's obviously a good practice but this + the language folder makes already 2 folders URL:.com/categoryA/product1-{targetedKW} {targetedKW} = cheap product, best price or else All in url I've never done it but it somehow makes sense URL:.com/categoryA-product1-{targetedKW} Part 3 - Keyword stuffing As I'd like to get most of it automatically done, what could be the best places to add a few KW. **Markups:**All the ones we can **Meta Descriptions:**optimize one for Google + one for twitter + one for facebook Longer to do but then from google shopping and other automatic links, we could have the perfect or, at least, best description possible **All other option:**Reuse our product name + {targetter KW1 KW2 ...} Product description_ex: content_ Buttons (click to buy)ex: button title="Buy product_name cheap" alt="Purchase product_name"Buy Product name/button Images:same than above Meta:Titles and meta description Hn
International SEO | | omnyex0 -
International targeting
I'm offering an international service to any country from any destination, The website main language is English and i have 4 other languages as subdirectories, https://beassistance.com https://beassistance.com/de/ https://beassistance.com/es/ https://beassistance.com/fr/ https://beassistance.com/ru/ I'm looking to target by language not country, Should i choose "unlisted" for all the subdirectories? my second question regards the meta tags , my current meta tag rel="alternate" hreflang="ru-ru" href="https://beassistance.com/ru/" /> And i'm thinking about using rel="alternate" hreflang="ru" href="https://beassistance.com/ru/" /> Is that best practice to target by the language? Update I already have Hreflang Sitemap <urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9" <br="">xmlns:xhtml="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
International SEO | | MTBE
<url><loc>https://beassistance.com</loc>
<xhtml:link<br>rel="alternate"
hreflang="en"
href="https://beassistance.com"
/>
<xhtml:link<br>rel="alternate"
hreflang="de"
href="https://beassistance.com/de/"
/>
<xhtml:link<br>rel="alternate"
hreflang="fr"
href="https://beassistance.com/fr/"
/>
<xhtml:link<br>rel="alternate"
hreflang="es"
href="https://beassistance.com/es/"
/>
<xhtml:link<br>rel="alternate"
hreflang="ru"
href="https://beassistance.com/ru/"
/></xhtml:link<br></xhtml:link<br></xhtml:link<br></xhtml:link<br></xhtml:link<br></url></urlset> <url><loc>https://beassistance.com/de/</loc>
<xhtml:link<br>rel="alternate"
hreflang="en"
href="https://beassistance.com"
/>
<xhtml:link<br>rel="alternate"
hreflang="de"
href="https://beassistance.com/de/"
/>
<xhtml:link<br>rel="alternate"
hreflang="fr"
href="https://beassistance.com/fr/"
/>
<xhtml:link<br>rel="alternate"
hreflang="es"
href="https://beassistance.com/es/"
/>
<xhtml:link<br>rel="alternate"
hreflang="ru"
href="https://beassistance.com/ru/"
/></xhtml:link<br></xhtml:link<br></xhtml:link<br></xhtml:link<br></xhtml:link<br></url> <url><loc>https://beassistance.com/fr/</loc>
<xhtml:link<br>rel="alternate"
hreflang="en"
href="https://beassistance.com"
/>
<xhtml:link<br>rel="alternate"
hreflang="de"
href="https://beassistance.com/de/"
/>
<xhtml:link<br>rel="alternate"
hreflang="fr"
href="https://beassistance.com/fr/"
/>
<xhtml:link<br>rel="alternate"
hreflang="es"
href="https://beassistance.com/es/"
/>
<xhtml:link<br>rel="alternate"
hreflang="ru"
href="https://beassistance.com/ru/"
/></xhtml:link<br></xhtml:link<br></xhtml:link<br></xhtml:link<br></xhtml:link<br></url> <url><loc>https://beassistance.com/es/</loc>
<xhtml:link<br>rel="alternate"
hreflang="en"
href="https://beassistance.com"
/>
<xhtml:link<br>rel="alternate"
hreflang="de"
href="https://beassistance.com/de/"
/>
<xhtml:link<br>rel="alternate"
hreflang="fr"
href="https://beassistance.com/fr/"
/>
<xhtml:link<br>rel="alternate"
hreflang="es"
href="https://beassistance.com/es/"
/>
<xhtml:link<br>rel="alternate"
hreflang="ru"
href="https://beassistance.com/ru/"
/></xhtml:link<br></xhtml:link<br></xhtml:link<br></xhtml:link<br></xhtml:link<br></url> <url><loc>https://beassistance.com/ru/</loc>
<xhtml:link<br>rel="alternate"
hreflang="en"
href="https://beassistance.com"
/>
<xhtml:link<br>rel="alternate"
hreflang="de"
href="https://beassistance.com/de/"
/>
<xhtml:link<br>rel="alternate"
hreflang="fr"
href="https://beassistance.com/fr/"
/>
<xhtml:link<br>rel="alternate"
hreflang="es"
href="https://beassistance.com/es/"
/>
<xhtml:link<br>rel="alternate"
hreflang="ru"
href="https://beassistance.com/ru/"
/></xhtml:link<br></xhtml:link<br></xhtml:link<br></xhtml:link<br></xhtml:link<br></url>1 -
International SEO Query
Hi All, I have an international SEO question and was wondering if you could help. My client runs a website in the UK (www.example.co.uk). The site is ranked well for it's collection of keywords, my client now wishes to target the US market. He wishes to use the same web structure and design in new site www.example.com as we know this converts well. My questions are: What would be the best practice for setting this up? I know there will be duplicate content issues if a website is duplicated. If we use the same design and website structure but re-word content, would this be acceptable? Thank you for all your help in advance.
International SEO | | SO_UK0 -
Optimizing for 3 international sites, how to avoid getting into trouble
Hi Guys As a newbie, I want to avoid any penalties or mistakes as possible that will be due to unknown and have taken some steps to educate myself around international sites and multiple domains. our aim was to target new zealand first and then branch out. Whilst we are pondering the NZ site and writing fresh unique articles for the site and the blog. And besides making the currency, language more relevant to these domains, is there anything else I could work on? I thought about making the meta tags different for the home page and adding Australia etc If we are going to spend time growing the site organically I thought I would make the most of spending the time growing all three together.... Any recommendations on how to get started and optimize the 3 alot better? Thanks
International SEO | | edward-may1 -
International Landing Page Strategy
Hello, I'm looking for some insight in an area that I don't have much experience in - hoping the community can help! We are a healthcare staffing company serving clients in the U.S. (www.bartonassociates.com). We are interested in attracting clients in Australia and New Zealand. I'm wondering if anyone as experience with best practices for doing so (both from an SEO and PPC perspective). Would it be best to purchase .au and .nz domains for these landing pages and link back to our US site for more information (or even recreate a modified version of our US site for .au and .nz). My concern here is duplicate content issues, among other things. Or, would it be better to create Australia and New Zealand focused landing pages on our US site and drive PPC there? My concern here is that we would never get organic traffic from Australia and New Zealand to our US site, in light of the competition. Also, the messaging would be a bit mixed if targeting all three countries. Our core term is "locums" and "locum tenens". Greatly appreciate any insight from you guys. Thanks, Jason
International SEO | | ba_seomoz0 -
Subdomains vs ccTLD in International SEO
I'm interested to see if anyone has any additional thoughts or recent experience on subdomains vs ccTLD for International SEO. An article I found on this site is from March 2011, so just wanted to check if this is still relevant? http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/folders-vs-subdomains-vs-cctld-in-international-seo-an-overview
International SEO | | edwardlewis0