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Recently I've installed SSL certificate on my website and added a 301 redirection on my website for all links. Previously my sitemap included HTTP links and almost my 5000+ pages are now indexed on Google and my sitemap includes 13,000+ HTTP links.

Now my website has SSL installed and 301 redirects. Should I add HTTPS links to the same sitemap, will it affect my indexing in any way? Or should I continue submitting HTTP links and leave worry about it because my website now has 301 redirects for the whole website. Or should I create new sitemap for my website with all HTTPS links?

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  • Put the https URLs in your sitemap instead of the http URLs. This shouldn't cause any deindexing. And the 301 redirect will naturally update the search URLs to https once Google crawls the 301s.
    – Michael d
    Commented Mar 12, 2018 at 23:37

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Google says that your sitemap should only contain the version of the URLs you want indexed. So you should take all your redirecting HTTP URLs out of your sitemap and replace them with your canonical HTTPS URLs.

When you move a site to HTTPS, ranking drops are common even with 301 redirects in place. I'd recommend running both HTTP and HTTPS sites in parallel for a year and using canonical tags to point your site to the HTTPS version. That is procedure I used for my largest site and I had no problems with the HTTPS migration.

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  • What if I start adding https links to my current sitemap?
    – Ayyaz Ali Furqan
    Commented Mar 12, 2018 at 16:34
  • If i change all urls in my current sitemap, what happens the urls that are already indexed?
    – Ayyaz Ali Furqan
    Commented Mar 12, 2018 at 16:35
  • It is fine to change all the URLs in your current sitemap Sitemaps don't usually effect how your site is indexed or ranked. At most they help Google choose preferred URLs and give you extra stats about your site in Google Search Console. See The Sitemap Paradox
    – Stephen Ostermiller ♦
    Commented Mar 12, 2018 at 16:35
  • Would I also have to change the property on Google webmaster from HTTP to HTTPS property? Should I delete http property and add https property and submit my site with https links again?
    – Ayyaz Ali Furqan
    Commented Mar 12, 2018 at 17:00
  • You can add a second property on Google Search Console to see the stats about your HTTPS site.
    – Stephen Ostermiller ♦
    Commented Mar 12, 2018 at 17:01
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Update your sitemap with the https links. Also update the sitemap url in the robots.txt

I hope you also get to add a new property for the https verison of your website in Search console and update the sitemap there too

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  • I have created a new property and hence a new sitemap with https links for this https site.
    – Ayyaz Ali Furqan
    Commented Mar 13, 2018 at 14:17

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