Hi there - There are two parts to the answer. First, it's very important to have a site map that is both current and does not have any URLs in it that return a status code other than a 200. Even 301 redirected URLs should not be in there. Also, the site map should not have more than 50,000 URLs....
Hi, The language annotations are a best practices conducive to a better organization of your web pages within country and language SERPs. They won't provide higher rankings. They will, however, produce a better experience for users who will find content that is intended for certain geographies, ...