Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
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 initialwwwwww.example.com/— it's missing the protocol (http), and will generate an Invalid URL warninghttps://www.example.com/— it's using a different protocol (httpsrather 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!
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
-
We are redirecting http and non www versions of our website. Should all versions http (non www version and www version) and https (non www version) should just have 1 redirect to the https www version?
We are redirecting http and non www versions of our website. Should all versions http (non www version and www version) and https (non www version) should just have 1 redirect to the https www version? Thant way all forms of the website are pointing to one version?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Caffeine_Marketing0 -
Fresh page versus old page climbing up the rankings.
Hello, I have noticed that if publishe a webpage that google has never seen it ranks right away and usually in a descend position to start with (not great but descend). Usually top 30 to 50 and then over the months it slowly climbs up the rankings. However, if my page has been existing for let's say 3 years and I make changes to it, it takes much longer to climb up the rankings Has someone noticed that too ? and why is that ?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics0 -
What are best page titles for sub-domain pages?
Hi Moz communtity, Let's say a website has multiple sub-domains with hundreds and thousands of pages. Generally we will be mentioning "primary keyword & "brand name" on every page of website. Can we do same on all pages of sub-domains to increase the authority of website for this primary keyword in Google? Or it gonna end up as negative impact if Google consider as duplicate content being mentioned same keyword and brand name on every page even on website and all pages of sub domains? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vtmoz0 -
This url is not allowed for a Sitemap at this location error using pro-sitemaps.com
Hey, guys, We are using the pro-sitemaps.com tool to automate our sitemaps on our properties, but some of them give this error "This url is not allowed for a Sitemap at this location" for all the urls. Strange thing is that not all of them are with the error and most have all the urls indexed already. Do you have any experience with the tool and what is your opinion? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lgrozeva0 -
Can noindexed pages accrue page authority?
My company's site has a large set of pages (tens of thousands) that have very thin or no content. They typically target a single low-competition keyword (and typically rank very well), but the pages have a very high bounce rate and are definitely hurting our domain's overall rankings via Panda (quality ranking). I'm planning on recommending we noindexed these pages temporarily, and reindex each page as resources are able to fill in content. My question is whether an individual page will be able to accrue any page authority for that target term while noindexed. We DO want to rank for all those terms, just not until we have the content to back it up. However, we're in a pretty competitive space up against domains that have been around a lot longer and have higher domain authorities. Like I said, these pages rank well right now, even with thin content. The worry is if we noindex them while we slowly build out content, will our competitors get the edge on those terms (with their subpar but continually available content)? Do you think Google will give us any credit for having had the page all along, just not always indexed?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | THandorf0 -
On 1 of our sites we have our Company name in the H1 on our other site we have the page title in our H1 - does anyone have any advise about the best information to have in the H1, H2 and Page Tile
We have 2 sites that have been set up slightly differently. On 1 site we have the Company name in the H1 and the product name in the page title and H2. On the other site we have the Product name in the H1 and no H2. Does anyone have any advise about the best information to have in the H1 and H2
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CostumeD0 -
Should I redirect my xml sitemap?
Hi Mozzers, We have recently rebranded with a new company name, and of course this necessitated us to relaunch our entire website onto a new domain. I watched the Moz video on how they changed domain, copying what they did pretty much to the letter. (Thank you, Moz for sharing this with the community!) It has gone incredibly smoothly. I told all my bosses that we may see a 40% reduction in traffic / conversions in the short term. In the event (and its still very early days) we have in fact seen a 15% increase in traffic and our new website is converting better than before so an all-round success! I was just wondering if you thought I should redirect my XML sitemap as well? So far I haven't, but despite us doing the change of address thing in webmaster tools, I can see Google processed the old sitemap xml after we did the change of address etc. What do you think? I know we've been very lucky with the outcome of this rebrand but I don't want to rest on my laurels or get tripped up later down the line. Thanks everyone! Amelia
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CommT0 -
How long takes to a page show up in Google results after removing noindex from a page?
Hi folks, A client of mine created a new page and used meta robots noindex to not show the page while they are not ready to launch it. The problem is that somehow Google "crawled" the page and now, after removing the meta robots noindex, the page does not show up in the results. We've tried to crawl it using Fetch as Googlebot, and then submit it using the button that appears. We've included the page in sitemap.xml and also used the old Google submit new page URL https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/submit-url Does anyone know how long will it take for Google to show the page AFTER removing meta robots noindex from the page? Any reliable references of the statement? I did not find any Google video/post about this. I know that in some days it will appear but I'd like to have a good reference for the future. Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | fabioricotta-840380