2014-08-24 10:13:02 8 Comments
I'm moving from HTTP to HTTPS for my entire site. The site is currently added to Google Search Console (formerly Google Webmaster Tools) as www.example.com
and all the pages are indexed without using SSL.
How do I go about moving to the new HTTPS URLs on Google Search Console?
Do I just submit an updated sitemap which has the HTTPS URLs or do I add a new site as
https://www.example.com
and submit the sitemap with HTTPS URLs? All current URLs are set to redirect to their HTTPS counterparts.Do I add multiple properties to Google Search Console?
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5 comments
@Flimm 2015-04-28 08:29:51
Update (February 27, 2019):
Google have announced domain-wide data in Search Console, which combines all subdomains and protocols of a domain, http, https, www, and non-www.
Old answer:
Google Webmaster Tools treats HTTP and HTTPS as separate sites and you cannot inform Google using Google Search Console, that you moved from HTTP to HTTPS since the address move tool does not support protocol changes
You can though add the HTTPS site versions. When adding a site, simply type the URL including the
https://
prefix. You will then have two sites in Google Webmaster Tools.This fits with the general principle that
http://www.example.com
is considered a different URL fromhttps://www.example.com
and may validly serve different content, Google is OK with that. In practise, most websites set up a redirect, but Google Webmaster Tools is designed to work in either case, just add both sites.Similarly, you should add the www and non-www versions of your site, so in the end, you should have four sites:
http://www.example.com
https://www.example.com
http://example.com
https://example.com
You can set whether www or non-www is preferred, but I'm not aware of a similar setting for HTTP vs HTTPS.
@DickieBoy 2015-04-28 09:31:59
Question on this; If i have moved the whole site from http to https do i need to keep the old http code running?
@DickieBoy 2015-05-21 16:49:58
Hi, took me a while to remember why i asked this question. The code i meant was account the verification code was associated with. Turns out: verification codes are the same from https as they are for http.
@000 2015-10-22 12:02:50
downvoted: As @Simonhayter has pointed out you do not need to initiate change of address..Google Link..
@user66638 2015-12-22 10:43:55
Do I need to resubmit sitemap on the https:// version?
@gregn3 2016-03-23 12:45:57
You can add a
Strict-Transport-Security
http header to make Google prefer HTTPS versions in search results. As described here. "Use a web server that supports HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) and make sure that it's enabled. HSTS tells the browser to request pages using HTTPS automatically, even if the user enters http in the browser location bar. It also tells Google to serve secure URLs in the search results. "@MA-Maddin 2018-03-20 12:37:30
What if redirecting all subdomains and HTTP via Apache to
https://example.com
? What is the sense of addinghttp://www.
,http://
, andhttps://www.
to Search Console?@niico 2019-05-08 16:27:11
Thanks for the udpate, but it's not at all clear. Does this mean we don't have to do anything at all, if http is redirected to https it will all just automatically work? If not what do we need to do, the Google link is hella vague.
@user13909 2019-05-13 10:50:32
Hi think the "update" leads to confusion. The new "domain property" feature from my point of view does not remove the need to create a new site for the https versión. I see the domain properties as a way to group all of your same domain defined consoles. I don't see how the domain property removes that need.
@Simon Hayter 2014-08-24 12:07:24
The address move tool does not support protocol changes
Since HTTPS and HTTP are protocols you are not moving your site from one address to another, you are merely changing the URL path. Google Webmaster Tools does not support address moves on changes to the URL paths including sub domains, and protocols.
Therefore you do not need to inform Google Webmaster Tools that you are changing protocols, however it is recommended that you setup redirects from all old URLS to the new URLS, and update your sitemap to include the new URLS.
Add all variations of your site to WMT
While the site address move tool may not treat protocols, url changes and sub domains as new sites, the rest of Webmaster Tools does treat protocols and sub domains as separate sites. You should add all variations of your site, below is an example of my site BYBE added to WMT with all variations, you should do the same. (recommended by John Mueller from Google, See comments below this answer).
301 redirects recommended by Google
If you plan to serve the website as partial ssl or complete then you should setup good redirects, as recommended by Google:
Setting up the redirect in Apache
Setting up redirects in Apache, ngInx, IIS is pretty straight forward, below is examples of redirecting 301 from HTTP to HTTPS in Apache2
.htaccess
file.Sitemap changes
Since you are changing protocol you need to add a new property to Google as HTTPs, this will have no sitemap submitted as default, you will need to ensure that your sitemap contains all the new URLS and then submit it under the HTTPS property variation.
@user2240778 2014-08-24 16:48:16
Thanks for the insight, however what about fetching as Google, cause that starts with a http instead of as HTTPS, but by adding a site as a
https://www.example.com
, fetching as Google gives you the HTTPS option. So fetching as http for a site that's now HTTPS would go against whats already indexed.@Simon Hayter 2014-08-24 18:36:41
Well adding the site as HTTPS purely to satisfy fetch wouldn't merit it practical to add another site as HTTPS, since fetch will still work because of the redirect. The important test would be to see if you continue to get data such as web searches and crawls in Webmaster Tools. It would seem a waste to ditch that data unless you don't care about it, or it doesn't work. I just tested it and I'm surprised you can even add another site with HTTPS along with HTTP, I personally would add the two, don't delete one and see if they look the same and keep us informed.
@Simon Hayter 2014-08-24 18:37:30
Another thing to test is support.google.com/webmasters/answer/83106?hl=en but it's doubtful that would work since its technically no different of a site, its just the protocol used, which I'm surprised Google even lets you add another HTTPS. Anyway, let us know the results so we can update my answer or add your own answer so fellow members can see, or maybe someone with a more solid answer can beat us to the crunch
@user2240778 2014-08-24 18:54:28
Will keep you posted, this video from google i/o is actually quite informative when it comes to my query, answers what I needed to know. youtube.com/watch?v=cBhZ6S0PFCY
@MrWhite 2014-08-24 20:31:32
If you have both http and https then you need to add both as separate sites in GWT and verify them both. Https might just be a "different protocol" but it's technically possible to serve entirely different content from each. Likewise, an xml sitemap cannot contain both http and https urls, however if you have verified both in gwt then google lets you (google only afaik).
@John Mueller 2014-08-26 21:33:40
Google Webmaster Tools treats
https://
andhttp://
as separate sites; you should definitely add them separately if you use them both (or are migrating from one to the other). You should also update the sitemap file to point to the new URLs.@Adeel 2016-05-16 09:41:06
http and https are considered different sites by google.support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6033049
@JCL1178 2017-07-05 21:28:48
This comment will not be helpful, but this is one of Google's more annoying "features" especially when compared to how easy this is to do in Analytics.
@Faisal Shaikh 2017-12-24 09:07:20
Your answer saved my life.
@Joseph Shih 2018-06-28 02:56:33
@JohnMueller our team is at a disagreement about your definition of "use". We are responding to
http://example.com
,https://example.com
, andhttp://www.example.com
requests all with a 301 redirect to =>https://www.example.com
. In this case, would you say (a) we use all four sites or (b) we use only the onehttps://www.example.com
site?@Simon Hayter 2018-06-28 08:41:34
@JosephShih Google Search Console does not forward 'all' notifications from one variation to the other. It's by no means required but its recommended. If a redirect stops working then most likely some of this data will be found within the variation that stopped working correctly. It takes 60 seconds or less to add these variations and therefore it would seem a little silly not to.
@Eshwar 2015-05-21 09:34:00
If you are moving your site from HTTP to HTTPS, you will need to submit the HTTPS site as a new site (defined as new property). I was advised that I did not need to do this, however Google WMT stopped reporting index status, crawl errors and traffic.
Once I added the HTTPS to Google Webmaster Tools I started receiving correct data within the Google's WMT console.
@enjie 2015-01-13 21:17:25
Google change of address tools: Note: The tool does not currently support the following kinds of site moves: subdomain name changes, protocol changes (from HTTP to HTTPS)
@Andrew Lott 2015-01-22 17:30:39
If this doesn't support what the OP is asking, then it doesn't really help as an answer....
@Tobu 2015-01-21 22:05:01
Google has a site migration howto. A protocol change counts as url modification; this is the relevant section.
The switch goes much like a regular HTTPS switch. Once your urls are made protocol-relative, and before you start redirecting, you should validate the https site in Google's webmaster tools. It's a separate site with its own sitemap. There is no need for other Google-specific steps, but you can use their tools to validate that traffic is carrying over fine.