Best method of redirecting http to https on homepage
-
Hi everyone,
I'm looking to redirect all http requests to https for a site's homepage. It only needs to be for the homepage, not site wide.
What's the best method of doing this without losing pagerank or ranking?
I'm using IIS7.5 so I've been looking at a URL Rewrite or possibly this ASP.Net solution;
http://www.xdevsoftware.com/blog/post/Redirect-from-Http-to-Https-in-ASPNET.aspx
Or is a simple 301 or 302 (for some reason Microsoft's site says to do a 302 re-direct, though I'm not sure if this is great from an SEO perspective?) re-direct from http version to the https version the best method?
Also if the solution retained the URL query string that would be even better!
Any help appreciated! Thanks
-
Are you securing a lead-gen form? One thing to test first - have you done an A/B test of the in-page form vs. a large call-to-action button? I've seen testing go both ways. Sometimes, the in-page form drives more leads, but sometimes a clear call-to-action to a separate form is better (really seems to depend on the form and the industry). If the call-to-action works just as well, it would be much easier to secure the stand-along form than your home-page.
Going secure full-site would help solve some problems, although you do need full-site 301-redirects then, and you've got to make sure your servers can handle it (https: needs additional overhead). It's really tough to tell without knowing the nature/scope of the site.
I'd be happy to close the private question, but if you want to dive into details there, it might not be a bad idea. Seeing the site would really help, since this is a tricky issue.
-
Ooo, doesn't sound great.
Do you think if I was to do this it would be better to convert the whole site to HTTPS and enforce it site wide?
(I actually posted a private question on this as well hoping you'd answer it, but you've done it here! - can I close the private one??)
Thanks
-
301 is probably best here. There are two tricks here, though, and it can get messy:
(1) You'll need to link to the HTTPS version in your internal links as well.
(2) If you use relative links (like "/about.aspx"), then all the navigation links from your secure home-page will cause Google to crawl the rest of the site with HTTPS, possibly creating mass dupe content.
Practically, there's a fair amount of risk in just securing your home-page, and it goes beyond the home-page itself. I'd proceed with caution and really evaluate the pros and cons.
-
For SEO the 301 is the best and simple solution
-
Naghirniac - thanks for your answer.
Granted, but which is the best for SEO?
I'm thinking, surely I can just do a simple 301?
-
Shelly,
There are tree methods, all with their benefits and difficulties. They are: Redirect via a landing page, Redirect via a custom error and Redirect via URL manipulation.
You can take a look at this detailed post: http://www.iis-aid.com/articles/how_to_guides/three_methods_redirect_http_https
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Missing 301 redirects
I just had a developer friend call me in a panic, because they had gone live with a new site and found out (the hard way) that they had missed some pages on their 301 redirects. So the pages are appearing in Google but serving 404s. Ouch! So their question was: other than running a report for 404 errors in something like Screaming Frog, is there a way to hunt down ONLY pages serving 404s, then export to CSV so they can be redirected? Anyone got any tricks up their sleeve?
Technical SEO | | muzzmoz0 -
Redirects
Hello, i would like to ask which is the best redirect to use in a website now i have all my links to go to https://www.anavasis.gr Which is the best between: https://www.anavasis.gr https://anavasis.gr https://www.anavasis.gr/index.php https://anavasis.gr/index.php thanks in advance
Technical SEO | | anavasis0 -
Is there a tool to see all redirects?
I'm thinking this is a silly question, but I've never had to deal with it I thought I'd ask. Ok is there a tool out there that will show all the redirects to a domain. I'm working on a project that I keep stumbling on urls that redirect to the site I'm studying. They don't show up in Open Site or ahrefs as linking domains, but they keep popping up on me. Any thoughts?
Technical SEO | | BCutrer0 -
301 Redirects in subfolders
Hi, we're making our site into a static site but I would like to transfer the Google juice. Most of the links and database exist on subfolders though. Could I simply do 301 redirects on the subfolders and retain the value or does it have to be on the full domain?
Technical SEO | | Therealmattyd0 -
Google showing https:// page in search results but directing to http:// page
We're a bit confused as to why Google shows a secure page https:// URL in the results for some of our pages. This includes our homepage. But when you click through it isn't taking you to the https:// page, just the normal unsecured page. This isn't happening for all of our results, most of our deeper content results are not showing as https://. I thought this might have something to do with Google conducting searches behind secure pages now, but this problem doesn't seem to affect other sites and our competitors. Any ideas as to why this is happening and how we get around it?
Technical SEO | | amiraicaew0 -
Redirect root domain to www
I've been having issues with my keyword rankings with MOZ and this is what David at M0Z asked me to do below. Does anyone have a solution to this? I'm not 100% sure what to do. Does it hurt ranking to have a domain at the root or not? Can I 301 redirect a whole site or do I have to do individual pages. "Your campaign is looking for rankings for the www version of the campaign but the URL resolves as a root domain. This would explain the discrepancy. Since there is no re-direct between the two, you can have brickmarkers.com 301 re-direct to www.site.com which will prevent you from re-creating your campaign to track the root domain. Once the re-direct is in place it will take a while for Google to show the www version in the results in which your campaign rankings will be accurate." Thanks
Technical SEO | | SeaDrive0 -
301 redirect from Blogger
Hello, I have a client with a Wordpress network of blogs, each blog is owned by a different blogger. Many of them were migrated time ago from Blogger. I have seen that the way used to redirect them is a meta refresh, so no authority is being passed. I cannot find any reliable way of making a 301 from Blogger, There are some plugins, but I'm afraid of using them. Any of you have experience with this situation please? I have even thought about placing a global rel canonical before the meta refresh, but I think that here the problem is the meta refresh itself.... Thank you in advance
Technical SEO | | Juandbbam0 -
Domain Redirect Issues
Hi, I have a domain that is 10 years old, this is the old domain that used to be the website for the company. The company approximately 7 years ago was bought by another and purchased a new domain that is 7 years old. The company did not do a 301 redirect as they were not aware of the SEO implications. They continued building web applications on the old domain while using the new domain for all marketing and for business partner links. They just put in a server level redirect on the folders themselves to point to the new root. I am on Tomcat, I do not have the option of a 301 redirect as the web applications are all hard coded links (non-relative) (hundreds of thousands of dollars to recode) After beginning SEO; Google is seeing them as the same domain, and has replaced all results in Google with the old domain instead of the new one..... My questions is.... Is it better to take the hit and just put a robots.txt to disallow all robots on the old domain Or... Will that hurt my new domain as well since Google is seeing them as the same? Or.... Has Google already made the switch without a redirect to see these as the same and i should just continue on? (even the cache for the new site shows the old domain address) Old Domain= www.floridahealthcares.com New = www.fhcp.com *****Update after writing this I began changing index.htm to all non relative links so all links on the old domain homepage would point to fhcp.com fixing the issue of the entire site being replicated under the old domain. I think this might "Patch" my issue, but i would still love to get the opinion of others Thanks Shane
Technical SEO | | Jinx146780