Question #1: Does Google index https:// pages? I thought they didn't because....
-
generally the difference between https:// and http:// is that the s (stands for secure I think) is usually reserved for payment pages, and other similar types of pages that search engines aren't supposed to index. (like any page where private data is stored)
My site that all of my questions are revolving around is built with Volusion (i'm used to wordpress) and I keep finding problems like this one.
The site was hardcoded to have all MENU internal links (which was 90% of our internal links) lead to **https://**www.example.com/example-page/
instead of
**http://**www.example.com/example-page/
To double check that this was causing a loss in Link Juice. I jumped over to OSE.
Sure enough, the internal links were not being indexed, only the links that were manually created and set to NOT include the httpS:// were being indexed.
So if OSE wasn't counting the links, and based on the general ideology behind secure http access, that would infer that no link juice is being passed...
Right??
Thanks for your time. Screens are available if necessary, but the OSE has already been updated since then and the new internal links ARE STILL NOT being indexed.
The problem is.. is this a volusion problem?
Should I switch to Wordpress?
here's the site URL (please excuse the design, it's pretty ugly considering how basic volusion is compared to wordpress)
-
Hi Tyler
Looks like the duplicate title tags are largely from empty pages like these:
http://www.uncommonthread.com/008-Pink-Ice-p/14410008.htm
http://www.uncommonthread.com/001-Gold-p/14410001.htm
http://www.uncommonthread.com/019-Copper-p/14410019.htm
http://www.uncommonthread.com/027-Electric-Blue-p/14410027.htm
Even though these pages are somewhat unique, the content is definitely "thin" and having a lot of pages like this typically isn't good for rankings.
Ideally, you would list small product variations on the same page, or even have several similar product pages canonical to a master page. Generally if you don't have a 200 words minimum of good editorial content, Google might consider it duplicate.
I don't see any reason why switching to http should cause too much problem if you passed everything through a 301 redirect. To be honest, it's typical for rankings to fluxuate frequently so it could be a million things.
If I look at the text-only cache of the page you sent: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.ontracparts.com&strip=1
... it looks pretty similar. If it were my page, I'd probably try to include more descriptive text on the page, richer descriptions, ets.
Hope this helps!
-
Wow. What an awesome answer.
I literally don't know if I can't thank you enough for taking the time to answer so wholesomely.
I decided to go ahead and fix the https:// and change it to http://
Weird results here.. Traffic went down by 5.5% compared to the month before I posted this thread.
I noticed an increase in duplicate title tags (about 700 - 1000 of them) in my seomoz account.
Could that be likely to be the reason for the decrease? Or is it just because I shouldn't have made such a drastic site-wide change like that?
I am attempting to give unique title tags, and html titles to all of those product pages that are causing the increases in duplicate titles
I also am in a slight predicament because she hired another company to do some "optimization" around October 23rd.
Since then, they have made some spammy changes in my opinion, but some results have shown up (20+% increase starting around Jan 1st, and capping on the day I made the https:// change), and I can't get her to agree with me that we should invest in building a Social following, making better content, and blogging more often, etc. I also think we should move the blog to be in a sub folder on the domain as well..
I compared the webcache you showed me to a wordpress site that i built and the difference really was pretty shocking
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.ontracparts.com
whats the difference as far as rankings and SEs are concerned?
-
Hi Tyler,
Great question! In fact, it's a common misconception that Google doesn't index https. In truth, these days they appear to index most https just fine.
If we do a site operator Google search for https on your site, we get something like this:
site:uncommonthread.com/ inurl:https (click to see results)
This returns 165 URLs on your site with the https protocol.
But.... these URLs don't show up in OSE because at this time, the Linkscape crawler can't crawl https. When it was originally built Google still didn't index https, so it wasn't needed. This should be fixed in just a few months and you should start seeing those https results in there. The good news is that OSE is completely separate from Google and doesn't influence your rankings in any way.
Now for the bad news....
Whenever you have https, you want to make sure you only have ONE version of the url, so that https either redirects (via 301) to the http version, or vice versa. Otherwise Google might index both versions. For example, both of these URLs resolve on your site:
https://www.uncommonthread.com/kb_results.asp?ID=5
http://www.uncommonthread.com/kb_results.asp?ID=5
The solution is to either 301 redirect one to the other, or have an absolute canonical tag on both pages that points to one or the other (an absolute canonical means it contains the full URL, including http or https)
That said, I don't see any evidence that Google has indexed both URL versions of your site (at least not like Dunkin Donuts
Should You Switch to Wordpress?
Based simply on the https issue, switching to Wordpress isn't necessary. But Wordpress does offer other advantages, and is generally a very SEO friendly platform.
There might be other considerations you may consider to switch away from your current CMS.
For example, consider Google's Text-only cache of your homepage: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.uncommonthread.com/default.asp&strip=1
See how barren it is? Without taking a deep dive, it's possible the structure and technology employed by your CMS is causing indexing/crawling issues, and considerable technical effort may be required to make it SEO friendly. I can't give you a definite answer either way, but it's something to think about.
Hope this helps!
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
-
Homepage Slider How to Handle H1 and H2's
Working on a site with a slider on the homepage, I dislike them but owner wants to keep in place. Currently, the slider has 4 slides with different images but the same text, so the slider has 4 slides with 4 identical H2 tags and accompanying text. There is no H1 tag on the page at all. It seems to me that a better solution would be to change the first slide to be H1 (with the target keyword) and rework the text in the other slides as H2 tags to appeal to the user. This does mean that the H1 and H2 tags in the slider would be styled the same. Is this a sensible approach?
Web Design | | GrouchyKids1 -
Anything wrong in linking to homepage from all sub domain pages?
Hi, We have 6 sub domains which are forums, guides, etc. They have their own visitors for the related queries. We are planning to divert some of them to the website to promote our product with latest content. We are planning to add a link from every page of sub domain to our website homepage. This makes additional thousands of internal links flowing to website homepage. Will this kind of internal linking structure hurts? Any risks involved? Thanks
Web Design | | vtmoz1 -
Custom HTML or WordPress, it's Time to Decide
Today I start the face to face interviews with website companies. So far most have pushed WordPress, few have offered either and one insisted on Joomla. Our 50+ products and services are primarily customized, so we sell -10 on our shopping cart. We rely primarily on organic Google rankings, SEO and content is critical. What do you, my fellow Mozzers, recommend for our next website platform for our mobile world and Google friendliness? TY, KJr
Web Design | | KevnJr0 -
How to rewrite/redirect a folder name with .htaccess
I have a folder in my site that I want to rename. I don’t want to just rewrite the URL and keep my old folder name, I want to change the folder name and then do whatever is necessary with .hataccess to not lose search engine rankings. The folder name I want to change has a space in it and also is misspelled (whoops x2) Example. Mysite.com/old foldr/page.html Mysite.com/newfolder/page.html How would I go about doing this with .htaccess? Do I just switch the folder name on my server and then set up a redirect, or do I do a rewrite? Sorry now familiar with the terms or .htacces. Thanks all
Web Design | | SheffieldMarketing0 -
Location specific services pages
Hi guys, I'm working with a client who would has offices in two cities in Australia, and they provide a certain service to both cities. They would like to rank for keyword phrase for the service for both cities. E.g. Window Cleaning Brisbane, Window Cleaning Darwin. I strongly believe in focusing on relevance and visitor experience first, rather than ham-fistedly trying to rank for those phrases. Having said that, I'm thinking of creating two pages for those phrases as a sub-page to the service itself, with the title of those pages containing the geographically specific phrases. E.g.: Window Cleaning -->Window Cleaning Brisbane -->Window Cleaning Darwin The pages would highlight the 'reach' of the service in the two cities, as well as some specific information such as the history of both offices, any distinctions between the services provided, the teams at both locations, and so forth. I feel that although this seems like a valid reason for doing this, I may be overlooking something. What do you guys think?
Web Design | | carlod0 -
How Important is Title Tag while viewing in browser's tab
Hi SEOmozer,I have a dumb/silly question. Ok, I know Title tags are important for SEO and users and it shows up in the SERP and all that. My question is that, using a weird CMS, I have the title tag implemented and it appear in the SERP the way I want it. However, the problem is that when I hover over the tab on the browser, it doesn't appear the same way it is in the SERP. Does that really matter that it appears differently? I checked the HTMl and this what I got<title>Example Keywordtitle><meta name="layout" content="main"/><meta name="description" content="Keyword 1 | Keyword 2 | Company Name"/>So whats within the "content" is showing in the SERP and what is in "title" tag is showing in the browser tab. Shouldn't they be the same?
Web Design | | TommyTan0 -
Page Title Optimization
I am reviewing the optimization on my site and it appears that my page titles follow this method: PAGE_NAME | KEYWORD in CITY ST - COMPANY_NAME I am pretty well optimized for "KEYWORD in CITY ST" but am wondering if I should drop it from all page titles except for the pages that actually deal with that keyword. What are your thoughts on optimizing?
Web Design | | nusani0 -
Thoughts on my site structure? (And a quick thank you!)
I've learned a lot through this site (and the community built around it) about everything SEO related. It's been extremely helpful in helping us help others to learn that all people (even those with a "disability") deserve respect and integrity. (Wow, that's a lot of helps!) So I wanted to give a quick thanks to everyone on this site who has helped, supported, and encouraged us. We really appreciate it. One thing I've been trying to do on my site is look at my categories and over all site structure. I've pruned a lot of things from the menu bar; pruned away and tightened up the categories, and even rearranged the navigation of the site. As you can see, I have several drop down categories up top. I wanted to see if I could get some feedback on how what I'm doing looks thus far, specifically as it relates to my categories / menus / navigation. Although any feedback you'd like to provide would be more than appreciated. One thing I'm curious about (and not sure how to tackle it) is regarding the top most item in the main menus. For instance you'll see I have a top level category called "Down Syndrome Resources" which takes them to all of the posts in that category. Under that, there is a drop down menus that gives them other categories, and even some pages that fall under the topic of Down syndrome resources. I'm not sure if people would know the top most item is a link, or just look at the ones below it. (If that makes sense.) (On a side note I have therapy as a category as well as parenting, the truth is those could all be sub-categories I guess since everything on my site pretty much could fall under "down syndrome resources." Maybe this is a huge FAIL I made when setting up my categories.) I'm also not sure if I should use some sub-categories as well. For instance I have a main category for Therapy. Under that I have posts about speech therapy, physical therapy, and occupational therapy. Right now they are all grouped into therapy. Do you think I should use sub-categories on those 3 terms, leave as is, or perhaps another option? Another question I have is regarding landing pages. It seems like I need to have a landing page for my top "key words." For example therapy. Now if you visit my /therapy you get the category index page, not a "landing page." Same would go for the sub-categories if I were to create them. So I'm not sure if I should make a new post or page naming it something else (maybe "Down syndrome therapy" another named "Down-syndrome-physical-therapy" etc) or something else. (Although therapy isn't really the keyword I want to rank for, I'm thinking more along the lines of children therapy, pediatric therapy, therapy for children with Down syndrome, etc. So maybe I need to rename my categories? I was going for shorter names, so I very well may have done this incorrectly.) All of these questions are things I'm not to sure about, so I'd appreciate any feedback or advice you can give me. And since I'm learning, I could be doing things wrong that I don't even know to ask. So feel free to tell me what you see that's wrong, you won't hurt my feelings. I promise. 🙂 Thanks in advance.
Web Design | | NoahsDad0