Should sitemap include https pages?
-
Hi guys,
Trying to figure out some onsite issues I've been having. Would appreciate any feedback on the following 2 questions:
My homepage (http://mysite.com) is a 301 redirect to https://mysite.com, which is under SSL. Only 2 pages of my site are https, the rest are http.
-
Should the directory of my sitemap be https://mysite.com/sitemap.xml or should it be kept with http (even though the redirected homepage is to https)?
-
Should my sitemap include the https pages (only 2 pages) as well as the http?
Thanks,
G
-
-
Hi Frederico,
On the google Sitemaps Errors help page, they include the following information:
"You should also check that the URLs all begin with the same domain as your Sitemap location. For instance, if your Sitemap is listed under http://www.example.com/sitemap.xml, the following URLs are not valid for that Sitemap:
http://www.google.com
— it's in the google.com domain rather than the example.com domainhttp://example.com/
— it's missing the initialwww
www.example.com/
— it's missing the protocol (http), and will generate an Invalid URL warninghttps://www.example.com/
— it's using a different protocol (https
rather thanhttp
)
Any URLs in the Sitemap that are not denied are processed normally."
This leads me to understand that Google don't want you to put http urls in an https sitemap and also vice-versa. What makes you believe otherwise??
Hoping to get to the bottom of this - thanks for the ongoing feedback
-
Those suggesting not to add the SSL pages to the HTTP sitemap are using data back from 2007, when indeed Google showed an error on those sitemaps listing both HTTP and HTTPS pages as they were being recognized as different domains. Those days are long gone. Google had evolved and can now handle sitemaps with both HTTP and HTTPS pages just fine.
-
Thanks for the input Frederico. I've been receiving various different answers to this question.
Most responses have said that we should submit 2 sitemaps: 1 sitemap listed under http that only includes the http pages of the site (which means we wouldn't include our homepage since it's under https!!!).
And 1 sitemap listed on the https version which only includes the https pages (which is only 2 pages!).
To be honest, I still don't know what to do here. Really frustrating that there is no clear cut answer to our situation, which I can't believe is even that unique.
-
G,
It wouldn't do any difference to serve the sitemap over HTTP or HTTPS. As for the http and https pages within the same sitemap, it isn't a problem either.
The only reason I can find for creating multiple sitemaps is for HTML pages, images or videos that do require separate sitemaps.
Does you site uses PHP? If yes, I suggest you test xml-sitemaps.com and it will create the full sitemap for you. If you have a dynamic site, then I suggest getting their commercial version. I've been using it for over 7 years I think and I always get a copy for each site I create. And they offer lots of extras in case you need them (news sitemaps, etc).
-
Hey Federico,
Thanks again for the insight - much appreciated.
So there's no problem for us to create a sitemap that has the https homepage and then the rest of the pages in http? From reading previous Q&As on this topic it seems as though people felt you shouldn't have https and http pages under the same sitemap - I am a novice here so that's why I'm just looking for advice.
Is there any reason why we would need to have the two sitemaps available - as in, why wouldn't we just remove the old http sitemap (that didn't include the https homepage) and just go with the https homepage sitemap?
I just wanted to make sure I understood your response before we take action.
Cheers,
-G
-
Hey G!
You can serve your sitemap in both versions, that won't be any problem and won't trigger the duplicate content issue. So you are safe both ways.
As for the second question: Yes, you should, unless you don't want your pages indexed (any HTTP or HTTPS). I think I saw your site before, and if I remember correctly you had your homepage and login script under SSL, right? Then you should definitely include your homepage in the sitemap but you can leave the login script file out as you don't need that indexed nor google will index it either.
Once you have your sitemap ready, consider including a path in the robots file, like this:
User-agent: *
Sitemap: http://[your website address here]/sitemap.xmlHope that helps!
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Category pages
I am a very basic question on managing categories in WordPress. We have an Android website, and we cover news, rumors, tips and tricks about new devices. We have been creating categories for the new devices or at least for the popular ones which are launched every year, and link to them internally with the hope that it would improve the page authority and ranking. For example, we have a category page for Moto X, another one for Moto X (2014) and one more for Moto X (2015). One of the reasons for creating a category was to ensure that it is easier for readers to get information about a particular device rather than going to a category page that has information about all the models. However, the problem with their strategy we're now realizing is that it means we have to build page authority for the new category page from scratch, which can take time. So we are thinking of reusing the same category for multiple models. So reuse the Moto X category page for Moto X (2016). However, we are not sure if it would be right approach as we would be linking to the same category page with different anchor texts. So while it would be good to reuse a page rather than rebuild the page authority from scratch, would we be diluting the authority for the main keyword by using it for different models. I would love to hear your thoughts on how we should be handling categories and internal links in this case.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Gautam0 -
Editing A Sitemap
Would there be any positive effect from editing a site map down to a more curated list of pages that perform, or that we hope they begin to perform, in organic search? A site I work with has a sitemap with about 20,000 pages that is automatically created out of a Drupal plugin. Of those pages, only about 10% really produce out of search. There are old sections of the site that are thin, obsolete, discontinued and/or noindexed that are still on the sitemap. For instance, would it focus Google's crawl budget more efficiently or have some other effect? Your thoughts? Thanks! Best... Darcy
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 945010 -
Duplicate Pages #!
Hi guys, Currently have duplicate pages accross a website e.g. https://archierose.com.au/shop/cart**#!** https://archierose.com.au/shop/cart The only difference is the URL 1 has a hashtag and exclamation tag. Everything else is the same. We were thinking of adding rel canonical tags on the #! versions of the page to the correct URLs. But Google doens't seem to be indexing the #! versions anyway. Does anyone know why this is the case? If Google is not indexing them, is there any point adding rel canonical tags? Cheers, Chris https://archierose.com.au/shop/cart#!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jayoliverwright0 -
What Happens If a Hreflang Sitemap Doesn't Include Every Language for Missing Translated Pages?
As we are building a hreflang sitemap for a client, we are correctly implementing the tag across 5 different languages including English. However, the News and Events section was never translated into any of the other four languages. There are also a few pages that were translated into some but not all of the 4 languages. Is it good practice to still list out the individual non-translated pages like on a regular sitemap without a hreflang tag? Should the hreflang sitemap include the hreflang tag with pages that are missing a few language translations (when one or two language translations may be missing)? We are uncertain if this inconsistency would create a problem and we would like some feedback before pushing the hreflang sitemap live.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kchandler0 -
Why does my home page show up in search results instead of my target page for a specific keyword?
I am using Wordpress and am targeting a specific keyword..and am using Yoast SEO if that question comes up.. and I am at 100% as far as what they recommend for on page optimization. The target html page is a "POST" and not a "Page" using Wordpress definitions. Also, I am using this Pinterest style theme here http://pinclone.net/demo/ - which makes the post a sort of "pop-up" - but I started with a different theme and the results below were always the case..so I don't know if that is a factor or not. (I promise .. this is not a clever spammy attempt to promote their theme - in fact parts of it don't even work for me yet so I would not recommend it just yet...) I DO show up on the first page for my keyword.. however.. instead of Google showing the page www.mywebsite.com/this-is-my-targeted-keyword-page.htm Google shows www.mywebsite.com in the results instead. The problem being - if the traffic goes only to my home page.. they will be less likely to stay if they dont find what they want immediately and have to search for it.. Any suggestions would be appreciated!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | chunkyvittles0 -
Page Indexed but not Cached
A section of pages on my site are indexed (I know because they appear in SERPs if I copy and paste a sentence from the content), however according to the text-only cached version of the page they are not being read by Google.Why are they indexed event hough it seems like Google is not reading them..... or is Google in fact reading this text even though it seems like they should not be?Thanks for your assistance.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | theLotter0 -
Amount of pages indexed for classified (number of pages for the same query)
I've notice that classified usually has a lots of pages indexed and that's because for each query/kw they index the first 100 results pages, normally they have 10 results per page. As an example imagine the site www.classified.com, for the query/kw "house for rent new york" there is the page www.classified.com/houses/house-for-rent-new-york and the "index" is set for the first 100 SERP pages, so www.classified.com/houses/house-for-rent-new-york www.classified.com/houses/house-for-rent-new-york-1 www.classified.com/houses/house-for-rent-new-york-2 ...and so on. Wouldn't it better to index only the 1st result page? I mean in the first 100 pages lots of ads are very similar so why should Google be happy by indexing lots of similar pages? Could Google penalyze this behaviour? What's your suggestions? Many tahnks in advance for your help.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nuroa-2467120 -
How Do I Create Multiple Pages In HTML Sitemap?
I'm working on an html sitemap for our ecommerce site and want to limit the links on each page to less than 100. I've created an article for the initial page, but what is the proper way to go to the next page? Do I create another article page (and so on and so on) until I have the sitemap completed? If so, how do I link from one page to the next? Would my on page text read: "sitemap continued" with anchor text on the link "sitemap page 2.."? It seems like all the sitemaps I've seen just fill one page with links and very little regard for "link saturation" and continuous pages. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AWCthreads0