: Deleting a sitemap earlier submitted after porting to HTTPS version Do I have to remove my sitemaps submitted earlier in HTTP version. As I have already submitted for HTTPS version and also

@Jamie184

Note that simply deleting the sitemap from Google Search Console (formerly Webmaster Tools) doesn't necessarily mean that Google will stop reading it. As stated in the Google support docs:


Deleting a sitemap from Search Console does not prevent Google from reading it. Google might continue to read your sitemap until you either block access to it using robots.txt or remove the sitemap file from your web host


However, it is often recommended that you leave the old HTTP sitemap in place (for some weeks at least) to make it easier for Googlebot to recrawl the old URLs in order to discover your new HTTPS site (via an external redirect - presumably you have implemented an HTTP to HTTPS 301 redirect?). However, if your sitewide HTTP to HTTPS redirect, literally redirects everything, with no exception for the sitemap then no bot is going to see your old HTTP sitemap (on the HTTP property) anyway.

Note that sitemaps are only advisory. It can help search engines crawling a site and discovering URLs, but it does not guarantee that those URLs will be indexed.

Personally, I feel the reasons to keep the old sitemap a bit vague. When migrating from HTTP to HTTPS you are only really concerned about the old HTTP URLs that might already be indexed, you are not interested in trying to index more HTTP URLs. The HTTP URLs that are indexed will be recrawled anyway, regardless of whether you have a sitemap or not. Maybe having a sitemap expedites the recrawl (although I don't think I've seen that stated)?! However, keeping the old HTTP sitemap in Search Console can help with reporting as it will help to determine how many of the old HTTP and new HTTPS URLs are indexed.

Reference:


In which webmaster property should I submit the HTTPS sitemap after moving site from HTTP to HTTPS?




Whilst looking up references for this question I did stumble across this Webmaster Central Help forum thread regarding HTTP to HTTPS migration and old sitemaps, with an answer from an "expert". In this thread it is suggested that both the old HTTP and new HTTPS sitemaps should be submitted to the HTTPS property in Google Search Console.

This would allow an unconditional HTTP to HTTPS 301 redirect and both sitemaps will still be accessible.

Note that it is only possible to submit both HTTP and HTTPS sitemaps to the HTTPS property if both properties are verified in Google Search Console under the same account.

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