Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Switching from HTTP to HTTPS: 301 redirect or keep both & rel canonical?
-
Hey Mozzers,
I'll be moving several sites from HTTP to HTTPS in the coming weeks (same brand, multiple ccTLDs). We'll start on a low traffic site and test it for 2-4 weeks to see the impact before rolling out across all 8 sites.
Ideally, I'd like to simply 301 redirect the HTTP version page to the HTTPS version of the page (to get that potential SEO rankings boost). However, I'm concerned about the potential drop in rankings, links and traffic.
I'm thinking of alternative ways and so instead of the 301 redirect approach, I would keep both sites live and accessible, and then add rel canonical on the HTTPS pages to point towards HTTP so that Google keeps the current pages/ links/ indexed as they are today (in this case, HTTPS is more UX than for SEO).
Has anyone tried the rel canonical approach, and if so, what were the results? Do you recommend it?
Also, for those who have implemented HTTPS, how long did it take for Google to index those pages over the older HTTP pages?
-
Thanks Eric, I appreciate the response.
-
Regarding the GCLIDs, you'll want to update your Google AdWords campaigns and anywhere else you can updated the URLs to the new HTTPs version of your site.
Whenever you use a 301 Permanent Redirect you typically lose the referrer data, so that's why you're going to see issues with the referrers.
-
I would definitely use the 301 permanent redirects and NOT use the canonical tag for this. Also, don't forget to verify the HTTPs version of your site in Google Search Console, as well. We recommend getting a few new links to the HTTPs version of the site, as that will help with indexing and crawling.
-
The best way to mitigate this problem would be to update the destination URLs in your Adwords Campaigns. You can do this in bulk relatively quickly using the Adwords Editor desktop application.
-
Hi Logan,
I have a question related to this topic. We have something similar in place, but we are struggling as the 301 redirect from http to https sometime kills the gclid parameter that AdWords uses to track clicks coming search or display campaigns.
Have you heard about this before? Do you any practical solution to this?
Cheers,
Kilgray Translation Technologies
-
No problem!
-
Thanks Logan!
-
Hi Steven,
You'll definitely want to apply 301 redirects to any site that you move to HTTPS. For most sites, this can typically be done with a single redirect rules that essentially replaces http with https, so you won't have to comb through each URL and apply one-to-one redirects.
No need to worry about losing link juice, Google views these types of 301s differently than a typical 301, and all authority will pass through them.
Canonical should also be applied, this will help search engines learn your new URL structure and ensure they index the new HTTPS URLs.
Cryus Shepard wrote a great post with all the necessary steps for a secure migration, check it out here: https://moz.com/blog/seo-tips-https-ssl
Good luck!
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
-
Google Indexing Of Pages As HTTPS vs HTTP
We recently updated our site to be mobile optimized. As part of the update, we had also planned on adding SSL security to the site. However, we use an iframe on a lot of our site pages from a third party vendor for real estate listings and that iframe was not SSL friendly and the vendor does not have that solution yet. So, those iframes weren't displaying the content. As a result, we had to shift gears and go back to just being http and not the new https that we were hoping for. However, google seems to have indexed a lot of our pages as https and gives a security error to any visitors. The new site was launched about a week ago and there was code in the htaccess file that was pushing to www and https. I have fixed the htaccess file to no longer have https. My questions is will google "reindex" the site once it recognizes the new htaccess commands in the next couple weeks?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vikasnwu1 -
Help with force redirect HTTP to HTTPS
Hi, I'm unsure of where I should be putting the following code for one of my Wordpress websites so that they redirect all HTTP requests to HTTPS. RewriteEngine On RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !=on RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301] This is my current htaccess file: *missing
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Easigrass0 -
Rel=canonical and internal links
Hi Mozzers, I was musing about rel=canonical this morning and it occurred to me that I didnt have a good answer to the following question: How does applying a rel=canonical on page A referencing page B as the canonical version affect the treatment of the links on page A? I am thinking of whether those links would get counted twice, or in the case of ver-near-duplicates which may have an extra sentence which includes an extra link, whther that extra link would count towards the internal link graph or not. I suspect that google would basically ignore all the content on page A and only look to page B taking into account only page Bs links. Any thoughts? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | unirmk0 -
Screaming Frog returning both HTTP and HTTPS results...
Hi, About 10 months I switched from HTTP to HTTPS. I then switched back (long story). I noticed that Screaming Frog is picking up the HTTP and HTTPS version of the site. Maybe this doesn't matter, but I'd like to know why SF is doing that. The URL is: www.aerlawgroup.com Any feedback, including how to remove the HTTPS version, is greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mrodriguez14400 -
Multilingual Site and 301 redirection
Hey there awesome people of Moz I have this site that has many languages in it. The main language is English and my developer did the following www.example.com ( is the main site ) which redirects with a 301 to www.example.com/en if your geo location is supported by our languages then you will automatically be redirected to whatever language you have in your country but does the first language with is english have to 301 redirect to www.example.com/en ? I thought that the right way is to just leave /en at the root file. Thanks in advance
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Angelos_Savvaidis0 -
Is 301 redirect suggested on pagination pages
Hi - Due to pagination the default page of site is coming in 2 url with - ?page=1/ sub-url and /sub-url is 301 a recommended solution due to this pagination urls Also - is it required to create separate title and meta description of every pagination page We are taking specifically in context of our discounts and offer section http://www.mycarhelpline.com/index.php?option=com_offers&view=list&Itemid=9
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Modi0 -
Can penalties be passed via 301 redirect?
I have a well established domain that's been hit with some penalties. It hasn't been nuked off the map, just downgraded, especially on short-tail, one word type queries. I'm planning on redirecting this domain to another well established domain. The domains already have a history of lots of interlinking and are very similar from a subject matter standpoint. I feel that the penalized domain has been hit with an "over-optimization" of link anchor text penalty (I'm hoping it's algorithmic, but it could be manual). My question is if anyone has ever heard of a penalty like this being transferred to another domain through a 301 redirect. My hope is that the penalty just puts a cap on how much juice the redirect can pass, rather than transferring the penalty to the other domain itself. Any thoughts on this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SEOMG1 -
Redirecting Canonical 301s and Magento Website
I have an issue with a client's website where it has 3700+ pages, but roughly half of them are duplicates. Thankfully, the only difference between the original and the duplictes is the "?print" at the end of each URL (I suppose this is Magento's way of making a printable page version of the same page. I don't know, I didn't build it.) My questions is, how can I get all the pages like this http://www.mycompany.com/blah.html?print to redirect to pages like this... http://www.mycompany.com/blah.html Also, do they NEED to be Canonical, or will a 301 redirect be sufficient. Also, after having done this, if anybody knows, is there a way I can turn that feature off in Magento, because we're expanding our product line, and I don't want to have to keep chasing after these "?print" pages after the fact.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ClifThompson0