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  4. Hreflang in header...should I do a Sitemap?

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Hreflang in header...should I do a Sitemap?

Intermediate & Advanced SEO
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  • navdm
    navdm last edited by Sep 15, 2017, 6:57 PM

    A client implemented hreflang tags in the site header. MOZ says you aren't supposed to do an hreflang Sitemap as well. My question is how should I do a Sitemap now (or should I do one at all)?

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
    • GastonRiera
      Gaston Riera @navdm last edited by Sep 26, 2017, 5:33 PM Sep 26, 2017, 4:22 PM

      Hi there,

      There are many ways to do it. In my opinion:

      • If the amount of pages is low, you can do it in just one sitemap.
      • If the amount is really huge, do it in different sitemaps, stating in the name of each of them the language (e.g. sitemap-es-mx.xml) and create a sitemap_index.hml with all those.

      Remember that its best practice to have the sitemaps in the root folder: domain.com/sitemap

      Best luck.
      GR.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • topic:timeago_earlier,8 days
      • navdm
        navdm @GastonRiera last edited by Sep 18, 2017, 9:14 AM Sep 18, 2017, 9:14 AM

        Hi Gaston - Thanks for the response. My urls are set up like so:

        • mysite.com/us/en/page
        • mysite.com/fr/fr/page
        • mysite.com/ca/fr/page
        • mysite.com/mx/es/page
        • mysite.com/es/es/page

        And so on. Would you recommend doing a separate sitemap for each language/country? Thus:

        • mysite.com/us/en/sitemap.xml
        • mysite.com/fr/fr/sitemap.xml
        • mysite.com/ca/fr/sitemap.xml
        • mysite.com/mx/es/sitemap.xml
        • mysite.com/es/es/sitemap.xml

        Thanks!

        GastonRiera 1 Reply Last reply Sep 26, 2017, 4:22 PM Reply Quote 0
        • GastonRiera
          Gaston Riera last edited by Sep 26, 2017, 5:33 PM Sep 16, 2017, 12:09 PM

          Hello there!

          Yes you should, better you must do a sitemap, but do not include the hreflang attribute.
          Here: Google Search Console help you can see how a sitemap INCLUDING the hreflang looks like. Remove the portion:

          <xhtml:link <br="">rel="alternate"
          hreflang="de"
          href="http://www.example.com/deutsch/"
          /></xhtml:link>

          Hope it helps.
          Good Luck!
          GR.

          navdm 1 Reply Last reply Sep 18, 2017, 9:14 AM Reply Quote 1
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