Google Indexed the HTTPS version of an e-commerce site
-
Hi, I am working with a new e-commerce site. The way they are setup is that once you add an item to the cart, you'll be put onto secure HTTPS versions of the page as you continue to browse.
Well, somehow this translated to Google indexing the whole site as HTTPS, even the home page. Couple questions:
1. I assume that is bad or could hurt rankings, or at a minimum is not the best practice for SEO, right?
2. Assuming it is something we don't want, how would we go about getting the http versions of pages indexed instead of https? Do we need rel-canonical on each page to be to the http version? Anything else that would help?
Thanks!
-
let the people redirect to non https versions. what is the problem here? They won't loose items from their basket when redirected from https to http version. And when they are 'checking out', the protocol will remain secure via SSL as pages which need to be https wont redirect to non https.
-
Hi Irving, thanks for your reply. That all makes sense to me except "noindex meta tag them". They are the same product pages whether they are https or http, so I can't put 'noindex' on exclusively the https page...
Or are you suggesting that I figure out some conditional code that if the https version is called, it inserts a 'noindex'.
Is there a reason nobody is suggestion rel canonical to the http version?
-
block the https pages in robots.txt and nofindex meta tag them.
then make sure that all of your links coming off of the https pages are absolute http links.
Your problem is probably relative links on the https pages getting spidered and staying https when they come off the secure pages onto the http pages if that makes sense.
-
301'ing https versions would not work, because people who belong on the HTTPS versions (because they have something in their cart) would be force-redirected to the non-https version.
I'm thinking that rel-canonical to the http version along with Robots.txt rules as you've suggested may be the way to go.
-
1. it can create duplicate content issues and not a good seo practice.
2. You can 301 redirect all the https versions to the http versions and apply meta robots noindex, follow to the handful of pages that need to be 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
-
Why is Google no longer Indexing and Ranking my state pages with Dynamic Content?
Hi, We have some state specific pages that display dynamic content based on the state that is selected here. For example this page displays new york based content. But for some reason google is no longer ranking these pages. Instead it's defaulting to the page where you select the state here. But last year the individual state dynamic pages were ranking. The only change we made was move these pages from http to https. But now google isn't seeing these individual dynamically generated state based pages. When I do a site: url search it doesn't find any of these state pages. Any thoughts on why this is happening and how to fix it. Thanks in advance for any insight. Eddy By the way when I check these pages in google search console fetch as google, google is able to see these pages fine and they're not being blocked by any robot.txt.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | eddys_kap0 -
Is something wrong with my index after https switch?
I have previously switched sites to https but this one is behaving a little different. On September 19th I switched to https. I did 301 redirects at the .htaccess, added it to search console, and since we are using Magento I changed the base url. In the past when I have done this the http site index just gradually drops while the https site gradually rises. In early October the http site started to slightly drop but since 10/23 there have been no changes. For the https site it started to increase up until 10/23 then stayed flat. Why have they stayed stuck like that for a month?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Tylerj0 -
Does Google Index URLs that are always 302 redirected
Hello community Due to the architecture of our site, we have a bunch of URLs that are 302 redirected to the same URL plus a query string appended to it. For example: www.example.com/hello.html is 302 redirected to www.example.com/hello.html?___store=abc The www.example.com/hello.html?___store=abc page also has a link canonical tag to www.example.com/hello.html In the above example, can www.example.com/hello.html every be Indexed, by google as I assume the googlebot will always be redirected to www.example.com/hello.html?___store=abc and will never see www.example.com/hello.html ? Thanks in advance for the help!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EcommRulz0 -
Duplicate Internal Content on E-Commerce Website
Hi, I find my e-commerce pharmacy website is full of little snippets of duplicate content. In particular: -delivery info widget repeated on all the product pages -product category information repeated product pages (e.g. all medicines belonging to a certain category of medicines have identical side effects and I also include a generic snippet of the condition the medicine treats) Do you think it will harm my rankings to do this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | deelo5550 -
E-commerce site structure & link juice: Bouncing off an idea
Hi guys, Question from a new-comer in SEO. Summary of the situation: potential customers are searching for a generic product category (buy mountainbike) more often than a brand in that category (Specialized MTB). And the latter is searched more often than a specific product ('some specific product from Specialized brand'). Both the brand pages and product pages are not ranking good Then would it be a good idea to have the category pages only link to the brand pages? They may show the products, but the links wouldn't pass link juice. I'm not even sure if that is technically possible, but I wanted to figure out the merit first. I'm hoping this would support the brand pages to rank better as they take in more volume. Please do feel free to teach me!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Peter850 -
Got a site in Google news, now what do I do?
I have been working on a site for 7 months, publishing articles each day. The site is dedicated to the niche that I am in. It was accepted in to Google news 1 week ago and I am now getting 3 times the amount of traffic. Its great news but I am now wondering how beneficial it is for me. I sell business management advice and really need to generate leads. Thats how I increase my business Any ideas how I could use this Google news site to do this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JohnPeters0 -
So What On My Site Is Breaking The Google Guidelines?
I have a site that I'm trying to rank for the Keyword "Jigsaw Puzzles" I was originally ranked around #60 or something around there and then all of a sudden my site stopped ranking for that keyword. (My other keyword rankings stayed) Contacted Google via the site reconsideration and got the general response... So I went through and deleted as many links as I could find that I thought Google may not have liked... heck, I even removed links that I don't think I should have JUST so I could have this fixed. I responded with a list of all links I removed and also any links that I've tried to remove, but couldn't for whatever reasons. They are STILL saying my website is breaking the Google guidelines... mainly around links. Can anyone take a peek at my site and see if there's anything on the site that may be breaking the guidelines? (because I can't) Website in question: http://www.yourjigsawpuzzles.co.uk UPDATE: Just to let everyone know that after multiple reconsideration requests, this penalty has been removed. They stated it was a manual penalty. I tried removing numerous different types of links but they kept saying no, it's still breaking rules. It wasn't until I removed some website directory links that they removed this manual penalty. Thought it would be interesting for some of you guys.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RichardTaylor0 -
How Can I move a site higher in Google Places?
As we all know Google Local Business/Places now has significant real estate for many searches. What I find hard to understand is what makes the difference between the different positions. Is it solely based on the content in Google Places itself or is it regular ranking factors. I am (like everybody) on a hell for leather search to try and rank above my competition but having studied their Places information I do not think there is much I more I can do. Suggestions hat have actually worked for you?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kdaly1000