Hreflang in vs. sitemap?

[eugene_bgb]

Hi all,

I decided to identify alternate language pages of my site via sitemap to save our development team some time.  I also like the idea of having leaner markup.

However, my site has many alternate language and country page variations, so after creating a sitemap that includes mostly tier 1 and tier 2 level URLs, i now have a sitemap file that's 17mb.  I did a couple google searches to see is sitemap file size can ever be an issue and found a discussion or two that suggested keeping the size small and a really old article that recommended keeping it < 10mb.

Does the sitemap file size matter?  GWT has verified the sitemap and appears to be indexing the URLs fine.

Are there any particular benefits to specifying alternate versions of a URL in vs. sitemap?

Thanks,

-Eugene

[katemorris]

I have always preferred in the sitemap because it keeps potential lines of code off your page. Everything helps when it comes to page speed.

However, if it's easier for you to put the tags on page, that's is completely valid. Do whatever is easiest to maintain and update.

[gazzerman1]

First off if you want to keep the sitemap file, consider breaking it down to multiple files, one for each language/country etc...

Also FYI there are THREE methods, you can also add hreflang to the http header. This might be a good options as well to consider.

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/189077?hl=en