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