Regarding question on sitemaps and http to https

[Boulos]

Hello,

I'm new this form and wow what a form didn't know there was something like it and oh boy I have been reading many existing form submission and there are some interesting stuff.

I have been searching and reading but I can't find a solid answer to this; I am pretty new to sitemaps and seo etc and just recently starting reading a lot on it. In that being said my questions is the following, I just converted all of my domains that I host for friends and family over to https. None of the sites had any sitemap configured so my questions are as follows:

1. Should I be adding both http and https and non www and www for each site to my "Google Search Console"? example (http://www.domain.ca http://domain.ca, https://domain.xxx.ca. https://domain/ca)
2. Should I be adding the sitemap_index.xml to each Property site example (http://www.domain.ca --- http://domain.ca -- https://domain.xxx.ca --- https://domain/ca)

Also the preferred domain within "Google Search Console" has been changed to https://www.domain.ca and I will be doing this the reaming domains. Is this a good thing or is it purely preference?

I was reading that I should implement 301 redirects for http. Is this a server side? if so they are all running Wordpress so I assume any 301 redirect plugins will do the trick? Would and should I redirect all protocols example? http://domain.ca to https://domain.ca and http://www.domain.ca to https://www.domain.ca

Thank you so much

[edited by: phranque at 11:05 am (utc) on Mar 21, 2018]
[edit reason] unlinked urls [/edit]

[phranque]

welcome to WebmasterWorld [webmasterworld.com], Boulos!

Should I be adding both http and https and non www and www for each site to my "Google Search Console"?

yes.

Should I be adding the sitemap_index.xml to each Property site example

this discussion should answer some questions:
Should I submit sitemaps of both http and https version of website? [webmasterworld.com]

I was reading that I should implement 301 redirects for http. Is this a server side? if so they are all running Wordpress so I assume any 301 redirect plugins will do the trick?

if you are only changing the protocol and not any of the url paths, i would do this all in .htaccess using mod_rewrite directives (assuming apache [webmasterworld.com] here)

Would and should I redirect all protocols example?

any request for a non-canonical protocol or hostname should redirect to the canonical protocol and hostname.
exceptions would be if you had to poke holes for site verification or other special requests.

[Boulos]

Thank you very much @phranque its very much appreciated and great information. I have some questions in regards to .htaccess and the 301 redirects but I will ask those in the apache section.

Thanks again