I reeeeeally doubt that.

Now, what are you seeing? attach a screenshot

Hi there.

Actually, your plan is very good. That's actually what Matt Cutts recommends in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcSsMbFSGyc&t=160. I think we can trust his word

Hi there.

I think Google is smart enough to correlate those. I have used special characters in pretty much all of my campaigns and didn't see any bad influence, since keywords are ranking in top 3 etc.

Hope this helps.

Oh, come on.

Does Google use the # of shares or something - of course not. But there is definite correlation between rankings and popularity. Surely not causation, but correlation. The idea is that the more popular content is the more likes, shares etc it will have, which, in turn, will cause getting more links. More links = better rankings.

Maybe I simply formulated it wrong

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 there.

I found this list of all available locales, if locales you're trying to do are in this list, then go ahead, otherwise it won't work.

P.S. List might be old and updated by now, but i don't think so.

• af-ZA
• am-ET
• ar-AE
• ar-BH
• ar-DZ
• ar-EG
• ar-IQ
• ar-JO
• ar-KW
• ar-LB
• ar-LY
• ar-MA
• arn-CL
• ar-OM
• ar-QA
• ar-SA
• ar-SY
• ar-TN
• ar-YE
• as-IN
• az-Cyrl-AZ
• az-Latn-AZ
• ba-RU
• be-BY
• bg-BG
• bn-BD
• bn-IN
• bo-CN
• br-FR
• bs-Cyrl-BA
• bs-Latn-BA
• ca-ES
• co-FR
• cs-CZ
• cy-GB
• da-DK
• de-AT
• de-CH
• de-DE
• de-LI
• de-LU
• dsb-DE
• dv-MV
• el-GR
• en-029
• en-AU
• en-BZ
• en-CA
• en-GB
• en-IE
• en-IN
• en-JM
• en-MY
• en-NZ
• en-PH
• en-SG
• en-TT
• en-US
• en-ZA
• en-ZW
• es-AR
• es-BO
• es-CL
• es-CO
• es-CR
• es-DO
• es-EC
• es-ES
• es-GT
• es-HN
• es-MX
• es-NI
• es-PA
• es-PE
• es-PR
• es-PY
• es-SV
• es-US
• es-UY
• es-VE
• et-EE
• eu-ES
• fa-IR
• fi-FI
• fil-PH
• fo-FO
• fr-BE
• fr-CA
• fr-CH
• fr-FR
• fr-LU
• fr-MC
• fy-NL
• ga-IE
• gd-GB
• gl-ES
• gsw-FR
• gu-IN
• ha-Latn-NG
• he-IL
• hi-IN
• hr-BA
• hr-HR
• hsb-DE
• hu-HU
• hy-AM
• id-ID
• ig-NG
• ii-CN
• is-IS
• it-CH
• it-IT
• iu-Cans-CA
• iu-Latn-CA
• ja-JP
• ka-GE
• kk-KZ
• kl-GL
• km-KH
• kn-IN
• kok-IN
• ko-KR
• ky-KG
• lb-LU
• lo-LA
• lt-LT
• lv-LV
• mi-NZ
• mk-MK
• ml-IN
• mn-MN
• mn-Mong-CN
• moh-CA
• mr-IN
• ms-BN
• ms-MY
• mt-MT
• nb-NO
• ne-NP
• nl-BE
• nl-NL
• nn-NO
• nso-ZA
• oc-FR
• or-IN
• pa-IN
• pl-PL
• prs-AF
• ps-AF
• pt-BR
• pt-PT
• qut-GT
• quz-BO
• quz-EC
• quz-PE
• rm-CH
• ro-RO
• ru-RU
• rw-RW
• sah-RU
• sa-IN
• se-FI
• se-NO
• se-SE
• si-LK
• sk-SK
• sl-SI
• sma-NO
• sma-SE
• smj-NO
• smj-SE
• smn-FI
• sms-FI
• sq-AL
• sr-Cyrl-BA
• sr-Cyrl-CS
• sr-Cyrl-ME
• sr-Cyrl-RS
• sr-Latn-BA
• sr-Latn-CS
• sr-Latn-ME
• sr-Latn-RS
• sv-FI
• sv-SE
• sw-KE
• syr-SY
• ta-IN
• te-IN
• tg-Cyrl-TJ
• th-TH
• tk-TM
• tn-ZA
• tr-TR
• tt-RU
• tzm-Latn-DZ
• ug-CN
• uk-UA
• ur-PK
• uz-Cyrl-UZ
• uz-Latn-UZ
• vi-VN
• wo-SN
• xh-ZA
• yo-NG
• zh-CN
• zh-HK
• zh-MO
• zh-SG
• zh-TW
• zu-ZA

Sure, I did this: http://bfy.tw/2hTu

Well, i see why it's being reported as 503. Cause even i can see it in developer tools. the main domain has 302 redirect and then responds with 503. Anyway, for you there is gonna be no difference in terms of seo. As far as I know google ranking algos don't use outbound links as signals. As relevance signals - sure, but not really of a much impact on rankings itself.