TRAFFIC
HTTP and HTTPS versions of the website.
For example:
http://www.example.com/sitemap.xml
http://de.example.com/sitemap.xml
http://www.example.com/nl/sitemap.xml
And
https://www.example.com/sitemap.xml
https://de.example.com/sitemap.xml
https://www.example.com/nl/sitemap.xml
Figure 10: Example of the URL removal tool in Google Search Console
Index, remove the specified URLs from the
HTTPS version and return a 404 or add
a meta noindex to the specified URLs to
prevent it from being indexed as Googlebot
crawls the new HTTPS version.
Disavow file
To prevent any backlink issues (such as
Google Penguin or a manual action to be
applied) for the new HTTPS version, go to
the Disavow toolDisavow tool in Google
Search Console for the old primary HTTP
version and check if there is a disavow file
present (see Figure 11). If yes, download it
and rename it from .CSV to .TXT. Next, go
to the Disavow tool for the primary HTTPS
version and upload the renamed TXT file
on Google Search Console.
If no disavow file is present or if the
file has not been updated in a while,
prevent the website from being held back
in reaching its full potential in Google
rankings due to a risky backlink profile, and
hire Google SEO Consultants to assist with
a full manual backlink analysis and a new
disavow file.
Crawl errors
To avoid any trust issues with server
response codes, let’s have a look at the
crawl errors overview in Google Search
Console for the old primary HTTP version
(see Figure 11). In particular, check if there
are soft 404s reported by Google. If so, it is
important to fix these by returning the 404
status codes for these URLs. As Googlebot
does not favour soft 404s, it is important to
avoid duplicating from the HTTP version
any potential soft 404 issues on the primary
HTTPS version. To learn more about why
Googlebot dislikes soft 404, click here.
Submit XML sitemaps
Earlier in this guide, a number of XML
sitemaps have been created, updated,
and placed in the roots of the relevant
subdomains and/or subdirectories and/
or the primary hostname, for both the
HTTP and the HTTPS version. These
XML sitemaps contain only indexable and
crawlable URLs (preferably canonicals),
extracted from the old XML sitemaps,
the server log files, and from crawling the
Figure 11: Example of error reports in Google Search Console
Test and submit each XML sitemaps
to the relevant Google Search Console
properties, based on protocol and/or
subdirectories and/or subdomains (see
Figure 12).
Figure 12: Example of testing and
submitting a XML sitemap in Google
Search Console
Conclusion
The next edition of this magazine will
have the final part of this series, where the
move to HTTPS is completed with Google
Search Console, and we cover how to log
files and how to measure the impact.
FILI WIESE is a renowned
technical SEO expert and
former senior Google
Search Quality team
member. At SearchBrothers.
com he successfully recovers
websites from Google penalties and
offers SEO consulting with SEO
audits and workshops. Email: hello@
searchbrothers.com and web:
https://www.searchbrothers.com
iGB Affiliate Issue 62 APR/MAY 2017
17