Sitemap for multiple language site

Question

I have a multiple site. For example:

English language page: mysite.com And mysite.com/en

Farsi language page: mysite.com/fa

Japanese lanuage page: mysite.com/jp

The content posts in English site (mysite.com/en) is different by posts in Japanese site (mysite.com/jp) and Farsi site (mysite.com/fa). Do I need to a saparate sitemap address for each language?

Answer 1

From Google:

If your site targets users in many languages and, optionally, countries, you can use Sitemaps to provide Google with rel="alternate" hreflang="x". These annotations help Google serve the correct language or regional URL to searchers.

That article will tell you more about how to do that.

(Summary of that article just in case it moves or is deleted)

• Be sure to specify the xhtml namespace as follows:

  xmlns:xhtml="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"

• You must create a separate URL element for each URL. Each URLelement must include a loc tag indicating the page URLs, and an xhtml:link rel="alternate" hreflang="XX" subelement for every alternate version of the page, including itself.

• This example uses the language code de for the URL targeted at German speakers anywhere, and the language-locale code de-ch for German speakers in Switzerland. If you have several alternate URLs targeted at users with the same language but in different locales, it's a good idea to provide a URL for geographically unspecified users. For example, you may have specific URLs for English speakers in Ireland (en-ie), Canada (en-ca), and Australia (en-au), but want all other English speakers to see your generic English (en) page. In this case you should specify the generic English-language (en) page for searchers in, say, the UK.