Once on https should Moz still be picking up errors on http
-
Hello,
Should Moz be picking up http errors still if the sites on https? Or has the https not been done properly? I'm getting duplicate errors amoung other things.
Cheers,
Ruth
-
Wow - sorry this question slipped past, Ruth.
As long as the proper HTTP redirect has been written to HTTPS, there's nothing that needs to be done with canonical tags.
The beauty of 301-redirects is that they are server directives - once in place, its no longer even possible to reach the non-HTTPS URLs. The HTTPS URLs should of course still keep their own self-referential canonical tags, but that's handled automatically in most CMSs (Content Management Systems like WordPress.)
Hope that covers what you were asking?
Paul
-
Hi Ruth,
I am more than happy to help. Please have a look at these resources if you believe the migration has not been done correctly.
Please have a look at these resources I think they will be immensely helpful. Please remember the Google doc referenced in number one is available in line 3 as well as In the instructions anchor text on line 2.
- https://www.aleydasolis.com/en/search-engine-optimization/http-https-migration-checklist-google-docs/
- To easily make a copy, add to your own Drive, download or print, go to the Google Docs, then choose “File” and select your preferred option: (Or use link below)
- https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1XB26X_wFoBBlQEqecj7HB79hQ7DTLIPo97SS5irwsK8/edit?usp=sharing
Please let me know if I can be of any help,
Thomas
-
Thanks, Thomas will have a look at those.
-
Hi Ruth,
Paul brought up a very good point.
If using Apache and it sounds like you are you can force the HTTP to HTTPS redirect using
<ifmodule mod_rewrite.c="">RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} !^443$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]</ifmodule>See this for more https://www.aleydasolis.com/htaccess-redirects-generator/https-vs-http/
301 Redirects are in place verify that by using a tool like this one. you can drop all the URLs you want to check in here. https://httpstatus.io/
Then make sure any HTTP is a 301 and any HTTPS is a 200
Then run a search and replace
http://mydomain.com
tohttps://mydomain.com
http://www.mydomain.com
tohttps://www.mydomain.com
If you are running a WordPress website this is a very effective plug-in ( and free if you type the name into wordpress.org's plugin repo)
https://bettersearchreplace.com/ or https://interconnectit.com/products/search-and-replace-for-wordpress-databases/
Your canonical tags (unless very good reason like third-party content) should be self-referencing meaning add canonical's to the https:// urls not the http:// URLs like below. A good example is what you see below
Moz will tell you as will https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/redirect-checker/ & https://deepcrawl.com will easily find any of the problems. some references below for rel-canonical tags
https://moz.com/blog/rel-canonical
https://yoast.com/rel-canonical/
Last but not least here is a wonderful tutorial that goes over migrating from http to https
https://www.keycdn.com/blog/http-to-https/
I hope this was of help,
Tom
-
Hi Paul,
Yes thank you, that's brilliant and confirms what I've been thinking - that the https hasn't been done properly as they're not redirecting when going to the http version. I thought the client had at the htaccess so will look into that.
If the redirects are done properly do I need to add canonical tags or are the redirects enough? Just want to make sure I'm covering all bases.
Thanks so much for your advice.
Cheers,
Ruth
-
You need to ensure that the HTTP version of the site's URLs are no longer reachable, Ruth. That means adding a 301-redirect to force all URLs to their HTTPS versions. This is the most likely cause of your issue
To test, simply go to a page URL in the browser address bar and remove the s from the HTTPS and hit enter. Watch what happens. If the address bar shows the automatic change back to the HTTPS version of the URL, you're good. If it doesn't, you'll need to add the redirect.
You should also ensure that all the internal links within the site have been rewritten to use the HTTPS version of the URLs - like menus, sidebars, widgets, and in-content links to other pages.
Hope that helps?
Paul
-
Thanks, Thomas. The https urls are in place but I was concerned that if the http urls are showing up still that the move to https hasn't been done properly.
-
Do a search & replace on your site then recheck it.
search for HTTP url's & replace with https URL's
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
-
Unsolved Google Search Console Still Reporting Errors After Fixes
Hello, I'm working on a website that was too bloated with content. We deleted many pages and set up redirects to newer pages. We also resolved an unreasonable amount of 400 errors on the site. I also removed several ancient sitemaps that listed content deleted years ago that Google was crawling. According to Moz and Screaming Frog, these errors have been resolved. We've submitted the fixes for validation in GSC, but the validation repeatedly fails. What could be going on here? How can we resolve these error in GSC.
Technical SEO | | tif-swedensky0 -
Website crawl error
Hi all, When I try to crawl a website, I got next error message: "java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Illegal cookie name" For the moment, I found next explanation: The errors indicate that one of the web servers within the same cookie domain as the server is setting a cookie for your domain with the name "path", as well as another cookie with the name "domain" Does anyone has experience with this problem, knows what it means and knows how to solve it? Thanks in advance! Jens
Technical SEO | | WeAreDigital_BE0 -
Google PageSpeed Insights Error
Google PageSpeed Insights showing this "An error occurred while fetching or analyzing the page.Dismiss" URL: http://westpalmbailbonds.com/ What should I do to fix this? Thanks in Advance
Technical SEO | | Beachflower0 -
Bogus Crawl Errors in Webmaster Tools?
I am suddenly seeing a ton of crawl errors in webmaster tools. Almost all of them are URL links coming from scraper sites.that I do not own. Do you see these in your Webmaster Tools account? Do you mark them as "fixed" if they are on a scraper site? There are waaaay too many of these to make redirects. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | EGOL0 -
Page has Noindex, nofollow, still ranks #1
Hi there, I have a question about a few pages on our site, whom has a no index, nofollow meta tag but they are still indexed and even rank number one in our market for the term. How is that possible or is it that Google just ignores the tags when they think it´s an error from our side? The url is www.drogisterij.net/kilo_killer and the keyword is kilo killer. We rank number 1 if you search from Google.nl Anyone have seen it before and know why this might be? Thanks in advance.
Technical SEO | | JaapWillemDrogisterij0 -
Does 301 redirect of old filenames still work?
I have gone through several revisions of my site. We used to have only static pages in HTML. I had search-engine-optimization.html changed to seo-philippines.html changed to /seo-philippines/ I 301 redirected all of them whenever I change the filenames. This is in the course of 6 years worth of link building and I'm wondering if this has an effect because our rankings go down everytime we do this.
Technical SEO | | optimind0 -
How to remove crawl errors in google webmaster tools
In my webmaster tools account it says that I have almost 8000 crawl errors. Most of which are http 403 errors The urls are http://legendzelda.net/forums/index.php?app=members§ion=friends&module=profile&do=remove&member_id=224 http://legendzelda.net/forums/index.php?app=core&module=attach§ion=attach&attach_rel_module=post&attach_id=166 And similar urls. I recently blocked crawl access to my members folder to remove duplicate errors but not sure how i can block access to these kinds of urls since its not really a folder thing. Any idea on how to?
Technical SEO | | NoahGlaser780 -
Magento - Google Webmaster Crawl Errors
Hi guys, Started my free trial - very impressed - just thought I'd ask a question or two while I can. I've set up the website for http://www.worldofbooks.com (large bookseller in the UK), using Magento. I'm getting a huge amount of not found crawl errors (27,808), I think this is due to URL rewrites, all the errors are in this format (non search friendly): http://www.worldofbooks.com/search_inventory.php?search_text=&category=&tag=Ure&gift_code=&dd_sort_by=price_desc&dd_records_per_page=40&dd_page_number=1 As oppose to this format: http://www.worldofbooks.com/arts-books/history-of-art-design-styles/the-art-book-by-phaidon.html (the re-written URL). This doesn't seem to really be affecting our rankings, we targeted 'cheap books' and 'bargain books' heavily - we're up to 2nd for Cheap Books and 3rd for Bargain Books. So my question is - are these large amount of Crawl errors cause for concern or is it something that will work itself out? And secondly - if it is cause for concern will it be affecting our rankings negatively in any way and what could we do to resolve this issue? Any points in the right direction much appreciated. If you need any more clarification regarding any points I've raised just let me know. Benjamin Edwards
Technical SEO | | Benj250