Moving to https
-
Hi all and thanks for taking the time to read my question.
We are going to migrate a very small website from http to https, its a roughly 9 page site with 5 of those being product pages.
I figured I would have to set a canonical and permanent 301 redirects for each page.
But our tech guys suggested just doing a binding to https so any traffic hitting our site with a http url would automatically get redirected to the https version.
So if someone land on http://mydomain, it would automatically return https://mydomain
Does this sound correct or would we need to do additional tasks even if we go down the binding route?thanks again for looking.
-
Here's the step-by-step right and easy way:
-
1. Sign-up for Google Webmaster Tools and create individual sites for 4 variants of your website:
-
http non-www
-
http www
-
https non-www
-
https www
-
2. Set the preferred domain among the above four.
-
3. Add an canonical URL for all pages for either https://www. or https://.., whichever you choose.
-
4. Add 301 redirect from http:// to https:// via htaccess using mod_rewrite.
-
5. Use Google Webmaster Tools "Fetch as Google", under "Crawl" in your http:// sites to confirm that http://.. gets redirected and optionally submit those redirects to be indexed by Google (just to make sure).
-
6. Build and submit a sitemap for your preferred domain site (one of the https://..) via Google Webmaster Tools.
-
7. Optionally, connect your Google Analytics property with your preferred domain site in Google Webmaster Tools.
-
-
This sounds odd to me - in my experience, if you want to load one page by a server sends you another, that's a redirect. It doesn't matter how the technology works on the server side as long as the initial URL returns a 301 before the server returns a different page.
It's possible that you and your tech guys aren't really talking about different things, you're just coming at it from different angles. Could you ask them to implement the solution they're suggesting, then use http://httpstatus.io/ to test an http:// URL to see what server code it returns? That might be a good way to communicate what you're looking for. The important thing here is to stress that your tech guys can code the server however they want, as long as it has the right output (301 redirects).
And, of course, use canonicals.
-
I would suggest migrating the whole site, and 301 redirecting all the http pages to the https versions. Without a proper redirect you risk the possibility of losing any link juice that would be directed at that page. A canonical should technically cover that, but the hard 301 leaves no room for robot interpretation.
Also, why leave the http version when you have a secure version available?
-
We have been considering switching to https as well, what are the pros and cons of doing this that you have heard on your end?
Make sure you have proper redirects as well.
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
-
Move a Wordpress Site to HTTPS with Bluehost
HI Guys, do you think that the following guide is enoght to move a bluehost wordpress site to https in a seo best practive way? https://www.shoutmeloud.com/free-ssl-certificate-bluehost-hosting.html Basically their steps are: Install SSL on Bluehost panel Install Really Simple SSL Wp Plugin Edit Your .htacess File & Add The Code For HTTP To HTTPS Redirection Update All HTTP URLs In Database To HTTPS Using Search and Replace Plugin Use Broken Link Checker plugin & use its redirection module to find links to 3rd party sites with HTTP that should now be HTTPS. Last thing to do Submit your new HTTPS site to Google Search Console & submit your sitemap. Update your profile link on Google Analytics. Update your website links on social media profiles & anywhere else they exist. This step you can do in pieces in the coming days. Read this guide to learn more about HTTP to HTTPS migration & fixing mixed content. If you disabled Who.Is guard for your domain name, you can enable it now. Do you know a better practical guide for wordrpess? in term of usefull plugins to handle the migration? Tx to everyone!
Technical SEO | | Dreamrealemedia0 -
Drupal, http/https, canonicals and Google Search Console
I’m fairly new in an in-house role and am currently rooting around our Drupal website to improve it as a whole. Right now on my radar is our use of http / https, canonicals, and our use of Google Search Console. Initial issues noticed: We serve http and https versions of all our pages Our canonical tags just refer back to the URL it sits on (apparently a default Drupal thing, which is not much use) We don’t actually have https properties added in Search Console/GA I’ve spoken with our IT agency who migrated our old site to the current site, who have recommended forcing all pages to https and setting canonicals to all https pages, which is fine in theory, but I don’t think it’s as simple as this, right? An old Moz post I found talked about running into issues with images/CSS/javascript referencing http – is there anything else to consider, especially from an SEO perspective? I’m assuming that the appropriate certificates are in place, as the secure version of the site works perfectly well. And on the last point – am I safe to assume we have just never tracked any traffic for the secure version of the site? 😞 Thanks John
Technical SEO | | joberts0 -
How to change 302 redirect from http to https
Hi gang. Our site currently has a 302 redirect from the HTTP version of the homepage to the HTTPS version of the homepage. I understand this really should be changed to a 301 redirect but I'm having a little trouble figuring out exactly how this should be done. Some places on the internet are telling me I can edit our htaccess file to specify the type of redirect, however our htaccess file seems to be missing some of the information in theirs. Can anyone tell me what needs to be changed in the htaccess file - or if there's a simpler way to change the 302 to a 301? Many thanks 🙂 htaccess: BEGIN WordPress RewriteEngine On RewriteBase / RewriteRule ^index.php$ - [L] RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d RewriteRule . /index.php [L] END WordPress EXPIRES CACHING ExpiresActive On ExpiresByType image/jpg "access plus 6 months" ExpiresByType image/jpeg "access plus 6 months" ExpiresByType image/gif "access plus 6 months" ExpiresByType image/png "access plus 6 months" ExpiresByType text/css "access plus 10 days" ExpiresByType application/pdf "access plus 10 days" ExpiresByType application/x-shockwave-flash "access plus 10 days" ExpiresByType image/x-icon "access plus 6 months" ExpiresDefault "access plus 2 days" EXPIRES CACHING
Technical SEO | | davedon0 -
From: http://www. to https://
Hi all, I am changing my hosting for legal and SEO reasons from http://www to https:// . Now I hear different stories on the redirects: 1: should i try and change my backlinks? 2: internally all links will be 301 redirected at first. Than I want to (manually) change them. It;s within Wordpress so there should be a plugin for this. Tips? 3: Will it affect my rankings and for what period? What I now know that at first it will drop little but eventually you will rank higher than before. Thanks so much in advance! Tymen
Technical SEO | | Tymen1 -
Http v https Duplicate Issues
Hello, I noticed earlier an issue on my site. http://mysite.com and https://mysite.com both had canonical links pointing to themselves so in effect creating duplicate content. I have now taken steps to ensure the https version has a canonical that points to the http version but I was wondering what other steps would people recommend? Is it safe to NOINDEX the https pages? Or block them via robots.txt or both? We are not quite ready to go fully HTTPS with our site yet (I know Google now prefers this) Any thoughts would be very much appreciated.
Technical SEO | | niallfred0 -
Using the Google Remove URL Tool to remove https pages
I have found a way to get a list of 'some' of my 180,000+ garbage URLs now, and I'm going through the tedious task of using the URL removal tool to put them in one at a time. Between that and my robots.txt file and the URL Parameters, I'm hoping to see some change each week. I have noticed when I put URL's starting with https:// in to the removal tool, it adds the http:// main URL at the front. For example, I add to the removal tool:- https://www.mydomain.com/blah.html?search_garbage_url_addition On the confirmation page, the URL actually shows as:- http://www.mydomain.com/https://www.mydomain.com/blah.html?search_garbage_url_addition I don't want to accidentally remove my main URL or cause problems. Is this the right way this should look? AND PART 2 OF MY QUESTION If you see the search description in Google for a page you want removed that says the following in the SERP results, should I still go to the trouble of putting in the removal request? www.domain.com/url.html?xsearch_... A description for this result is not available because of this site's robots.txt – learn more.
Technical SEO | | sparrowdog1 -
302 or 301 redirect to https ?
I am redirecting whole site to https. Is there a difference between 302 or 301 redirect for seo? Site never been indexed. Planning to do that with .htaccess command RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !=on
Technical SEO | | Kotkov
RewriteRule ^(.*) https://%{SERVER_NAME}/$1 [R,L] There are plenty of ways http://www.askapache.com/htaccess/ssl-example-usage-in-htaccess.html Which way would be the best? Thanks is advance0 -
Move established site from .co.uk to .org - good or bad idea?
I am currently considering moving our site from the current .co.uk domain to the .org version which we also own. The site is established and indexed for 7 years, ranks well and has circa 10k traffic per month which is mainly UK & US traffic. The reason for the change to the .org domain is to make the site more global facing and give us the opportunity to develop the site into multi language within directories (.org/es/ etc.) and then target those to the local search engines. For the kind of site it is (community based) it wouldn’t really work to split this into lots of separate country targeted domains. So the choice is to either stick with the .co.uk and add the other foreign language specific content in directories within the .co.uk or move to the .org and do the same (there is also a potential third option of purchasing the .com which is currently unused but that could be pricey!) We are also planning a big overhaul of the site with redesign, lots of added content and reorganisation of the site – but are thinking that it would be better to move the domain on a 1:1 basis first with the current design, content and URL structure in place and then do the other changes 2 or 3 months down the line. I have read up on SEOmoz, google guidelines etc on moving a site to a new domain and understand the theoretical approach of moving the site and the steps to take (1to1 301 redirects, sitemaps on old and new etc) and I will retain ownership of the .co.uk so the redirects can remain in place indefinitely. However having worked so hard to get the site to where it is in the search engines and traffic levels I am very worried about whether the domain change is a good move. I am more than happy to accept a temporary fluctuation in rankings & traffic for 1 – 4 weeks as reported may happen as long as I can be sure it will return after a temporary period and be as strong (or almost as strong) as the previous rankings / traffic. Looking for peoples experiences to give me the confidence / reassurance to go ahead with this or any info on why I shouldn’t Thanks in advance for your advice. Adrian.
Technical SEO | | Zilla0