Sitemaps: Alternate hreflang

[marianoSoler98]

Hi, some time ago I have read that there is a limit of 50.000 URLs per sitemap file (So, you need to create a sitemap index and separate files with 50.000 urls each). [Source]. Now we are about to implement the link hreflang in the sitemap [Source], and we dont know if we have to count each alternate as a different url.

We have 21 different well positioned domains (Same name, different cctlds, a little different content [varies in currencies, taxes, some labels, etc] depending in the target country) so the amount of links per url would be high.

A) Shall we count each link alternate as a separate url, or just the original ones? For example, if we have to count the link alternates, that would make us have 2380pages per sitemap, each with one original url and 20 alternate links. (Always being aware of the 50mb maximum filesize)

B) Actually we have one sitemap per domain. Using this, shall we generate one per domain using the matching domain as original url? Or it would be the same if we upload to every domain the same sitemap?

Thanks

[wissamdandan]

Hi Mariano

A)As you mentioned Google supports up to 50,000 URLs in a Sitemap, This limit applies only to the number of URLs referenced specifically in <loc>tags.</loc>

URLs referenced as hreflang don't count towards the 50k URLs.

B) Yes try to implement the sitemaps as they are different domains.