Migration to https

[MarcelMoz]

Hi there,

For several reasons we consider to switch from http to https. My question about this:

• Does this change impact organic search results since the URL changes? Is a simple 301 on the highest level enough to keep all of our positions with every page?

Are there any other possible issues we might think about before deciding?

I'm talking about a webshop with over 50k indexed pages and lots of running marketing channels all setted up based on the http URL structure.

Thanks in advance.
Marcel

[MarcelMoz]

Hi Kevin & TorontoV,

Thanks for your responses, and your warning signs concerning a migration to https. We recently launched a new website and we are going to 'migrate' this one first before taking any action on our main webshop. Since we had'nt received any backlinks until now on the new domain, there is no thread for this one.

@Kevin: I'll definitely follow your advice not migrating until Google gives a countdown message for our main domain.

Thanks again!

Marcel

[TVape]

Ey Kevin, we experienced the same thing. our blog traffic got decimated after moving to https and I can see some other sites that did the move and also went into instant nosedive in Semrush. How are the results now?

we are considering moving the blog back.

Marcel, you too. did you do the move and what were your results?

I have a hunch that it is not the "positive" thing all the preachers claim it is.

[kwoolf]

Patrick, everybody should definitely check external links. We had hundreds of linking domains to our site, but after the switch to HTTPS we lost them all. Google now shows only one single linking domain in GA. Our rankings for performing key words have dropped six to ten spots from our page one 1-4 rankings in less than a month. Indexed pages went from nearly 300 to only six in the same time. Structured data records show a drop from nearly 220 to only 17.

Since Google recommends this, we'll give this another month or two, but if this Google recommendation switch to HTTPS doesn't start showing positive results, we'll surely switch back. My recommendation for now is to only use HTTPS for pages that transmit sensitive data.

Marcel, wait until Google gives the countdown notice to HTTPS like they did with mobile before you migrate your whole site.

Background: I run a Magento 1.9.2/WordPress 4.2.3 multilingual site on LEMP with fine-tuned Google PageSpeed module, Magento FPC on dedicated Memcached instance, and Redis session caching. I know what I'm doing here, but if anyone has suggestions please do share. https://www.88k.com.tw

[MarcelMoz]

Hi Andy & Jonathan,

Thanks again. I'm going to use this information when we are ready to migrate.

Cheers,
Marcel

[jonmifsud]

Hi Marcel,

301s can be done in the htaccess, just make sure as Patrick noted above that your site does not link to http version but directly to the https. You will want to avoid redirecting people from one version to another without need.

Another thing that might be important. Webmaster tools might require you to add another property as if I'm not mistaken it considers http and https as separate entities, it will be good to set it up and monitor both versions to notice that you don't have strange errors during and/or after the migration.

[Andy.Drinkwater]

Is the htaccess code enough and does it fix a correct 301 redirect?

You also wouldn't specify a direct 301 when forwarding http to https. You can read about this within the Apache wiki here.

-Andy

[MarcelMoz]

Hi Andy & Jonathan,

Thanks for your response. This helps me a lot :).

Actually we do a lot of 3rd party advertising. I realize that we need to change all scripts but also URL's in tools of 3rd parties. This will be an important process I need to execute carefully.

Is the htaccess code enough and does it fix a correct 301 redirect?

Tnx!
Marcel

[PatrickDelehanty]

Hi there

Along with the great points above, I would check your internal links, as well as your sitemap, to make sure URLs now reflect the https:// structure. Don't worry about updating your external backlinks.

If you have any major structure or URL structure changes, I recommend reading this migration guide.

Hope this helps! Good luck!

[jonmifsud]

Hi Marcel,

A switch to https shouldn't hurt but would most likely have a positive impact on your baseline. Which is significantly more important than any loss in traffic. That said if you do the strategy properly and you redirect all the pages to the equivalent in https it should be fine (assuming you are not changing URLs and/or content).

What you might want to be wary of is the following.

1. Make sure that your CMS is able to automatically serve all your assets in https. So if you have images which are linked directly with http://domain.com/image.jpg you'd have to run a script to change the http into an https.

2. Any third party scripts / images also need to be run over https. As you have a web shop I don't think you're doing some kind of third party advertising but check in case you have any other http content.

Any of the above two will mark your site as unsafe, which will deter visitors and possibly be a negative flag to google.

Good luck on the migration.

[Andy.Drinkwater]

Hi Marcel,

Please have a look at this similar post here. You will find lots of useful information.

http://moz.com/community/q/moving-main-site-from-http-to-https-seeking-quick-items-to-consider

****Does this change impact organic search results since the URL changes? ****

In theory, it should be a positive move. Last year Google advised this was to be a new positive ranking signal.

Is a simple 301 on the highest level enough to keep all of our positions with every page?

I would advise you do this through htaccess. The code below should work fine for you. However, add it and then do your testing.

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteRule (.*) https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [R,L]

Are there any other possible issues we might think about before deciding?

Check how internal images are referenced and don't continue to point to http. The same goes with external resources like Google Fonts.

-Andy