Sitemap per language
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I’m working on an updated website where I replaced Yoast SEO with SEO Framework. So far, so good (or rather: better in many ways). Except for one thing: the xml sitemap function when you have more than 1 language. In my current site (with Yoast) I have separate sitemaps for each language (English and Dutch). Which is great for geotargeting the Dutch pages to The Netherlands, whereas the English pages are ‘global’. Which I have set up like that in Google Webmaster Tools.
There seems to be no way to get the same functionality with SEO Framework. Or is there (e.g. with a function like I do with Yoast) to get this accomplished?
If it helps, this is the code I use with Yoast to get separate sitemaps (using WPML for translations):
if (isset($sitepress)) add_filter('wpseo_posts_join', 'sitemap_per_language', 10, 2); function sitemap_per_language($join, $type) { global $wpdb, $sitepress; $lang = $sitepress->get_current_language(); return " JOIN " . $wpdb->prefix . "icl_translations ON element_id = ID AND element_type = 'post_$type' AND language_code = '$lang'"; }
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Hi @frizzel, hope you are doing well and good 🙂 Looking at this post, WPML actually considered your request as an unwelcome behavior, unless your language versions are at sitting at different domains/subdomains. They (imho correctly) suggest you should have only one sitemap for all languages in most cases.
I must say I agree with WPML for once, there is no tangible SEO benefit of having per language sitemap. Unless I’m missing something, which is entirely possible.
I have separate sitemaps for each language (English and Dutch). Which is great for geotargeting the Dutch pages to The Netherlands, whereas the English pages are ‘global’.
Can you tell us how is it good for geotargeting? As far as I know, submitting 2, 3 or 10 sitemaps makes no difference in crawling or indexing. Option to submit multiple sitemaps is there mainly because some websites have extraordinary amount of pages to index.
@cybr, the plugin author is also from Netherlands and probably has some experience with your specific duo of languages, so he might chime in on this 🙂
I humbly think that if you really want to target world vs. country, you should use separate TLDs — and even that only makes sense in some scenarios.
To my knowledge, there is currently no filter/function to make separate sitemaps per language. However, @cybr always followed through on suggestions that were beneficial for users, so if there is any other than cosmetic benefit to per–language sitemap, I want on that too! 🙂
*chimes in* (@lebaux’s response got moderated, he asked me to chime in…)
A sitemap should be generated for every language, separately.
Depending on your WPML settings, there are different ways accessing it.Not having a sitemap index file is perfectly fine, as you can submit them separately via Search Console.
So, could you tell us whether you’re using “subdomain, subdirectory, or query-string” translations?
And, if you could share the URL of the site in question, then that would also be greatly appreciated 🙂Cheers!
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