Changed URL from HTTP to HTTPS - 99% of my backlinks don't know though
-
Hi Moz community,
I've got a question about all old backlinks pointing to the http version of my site: Firstly, how it impacts my site's backlinks for SEO and secondly, why does Moz and if you know why Majestic have different metric report values for the different URLs.
The Back Story
Two months ago I bought an SSL for my personal domain and changed my URL from http to the https version. I 301'd it and can verify that on Majestic SEO using the old http URL. I did this sitewide for an eCommerce site that I'm working and did see a lift in traffic; that was the main reason based on Google talking about sites moving to the SSL Web.
I'm No Stranger to 301s
Of course all the URLs on my site have been 301'd. I used a HTTPS Redirect plugin for my WordPress site and there's been no issue. I also installed a 404 Checker plugin to log broken external links to my site where I can create a redirect right away in case the HTTPS plugin missed something along the way. I'm comfortable knowing that doing when you change the domain name for a site or just a page going from one URL to another will transfer all the link equity over time.
What's Causing the Confusion
What's a little confusing is that when I use tools like OSE or Majestic's Explorer, the data doesn't match. For instance in OSE, the https version of my domain has a DA of 1 and PA of 1. But, the http version of my site has a DA of 25 and PA of 36. With Majestic (BTW, please feel free to stop me from asking questions about another tool on Moz, but since we're all part of the same SEO community, I thought I'd ask it here anyway) the Trust and Citation flow values are definitely closely matched but still different values nonetheless.
My Question
Will I ever see the DA and PA the same for the https & http versions in the future? Does OSE catch the fact that there is a 301 redirect to the https version or does it only recognize that it redirects from http://kingrosales.com to http://www.kingrosales.com when in fact it redirects to https://www.kingrosales.com?
My second question is, what about the backlinks? Is it because they are different URLs that OSE doesn't have a way to recognize this and display links from the old http version to the new https version? How will I know the true PA and DA of the https version of my site even with a perfectly executed 301 redirect? lol
Let me know if you need more clarification.
Thanks
-
I have a simialr problem...
In December, a client site switches from http to https. Any clicks from old backlinks redirect from the http target to https, so the traffic still flows. But because the backlinks are to http, not https, the latter version has lost the Domain Authority.
How do we resolve this? Is the only solution to approach referring sites and ask them to change links to https?
-
Hey there, hoping I can chime in a little bit and while I can't speak fully to the SEO nitty gritty, I can at least shed some light on how Moz sees this.
http://moz.com/blog/save-your-website-with-redirects - One resource shedding some light on this is our very own Cyrus taking about the best practices.
Essentially during our index if we don't index your old backlink pages for various reasons (buried in new content, deeper within the page, etc.) we will of course not find the link equity and thus correlating DA and PA that come along with it. This process also won't be instant as the new page will be checked for relevance (bounce rate) from the old page.
I know some of our community may have more experience on this so I am hoping they will chime in.
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
-
Why moz is not indexing link from 21 march any body knows
I have lot of website few of them are really big sites. i want to know Why moz is not indexing link from 21 march any body knows please let me. is there some kind of maintenance going on
Link Explorer | | Arenapile3210 -
What's the easiest way to see a list of domains ranking well for a keyword with its DA and traffic numbers?
Hi. I'm trying to figure out how to easily see, for a given keyword, the ranking domains, their domain authority, and their traffic. Is it possible to get this all on one screen?
Link Explorer | | scott.thomason.scott80350 -
Open Site Explorer -> Just Discovered -> Internal Links: Only shown 1 url link per day
Hi, We have a page that have like 10-15 new content/pages per day.
Link Explorer | | Inspiringinterns
eg. domain.com/post-id-01/, omain.com/post-id-02/, omain.com/post-id-03/ etc
But somehow, under Just-Discovered, internal links only show 1 per day when it suppose to display like 10-15.
The layout for each pages is exact same except for the content changes and the url's ID changes. Our competitor on the other hand, they have like 5 new page per day, but somehow Moz shows their internal links as 25 per days. Each of their new url have 4 more prefix number.
Eg:
new-page-01?track=990
new-page-01?track=991
new-page-01?track=992 etc
The above example url is technically as 1 page if without the "?" affix. Whiles all our new pages/url have unique id, but Moz only show 1 a day. Please advise on how to get Moz to shows all the new pages in Just-Discovered (internal link). Thanks, Cam0 -
Site moved to https and not showing any Moz DA or PA
Hello Fellow Mozzers, So, I have a client site that we moved from non https to https at the end of 2015. We had decent moz numbers (Da/Pa etc) but now we are only showing a 1 for both of them. Does it usually take time for Moz to carry over the info to the https version or does that process entirely start over? Not sure where to start looking. Cheers D
Link Explorer | | DarinPirkey0 -
Local listings aren't being crawled?
Hello, SEO brainiacs. Here is the problem I can't figure out:We have a lot of clients and all of them have local listings, such as Insider Pages, Yahoo local, Bing locals, Yelp, Yellow Pages etc etc etc.
Link Explorer | | seomozinator
And all of those local listing have company's website link. But none of those links are considered (found) in reports, such as opensite explorer or in Link Analysis Section of Moz PRO. I do know that MOZ crawl considers only high DA websites, but all of local listing domains have above 80-90 DA score, so they can't be NOT crawled. I will say that some local listings do appear on very few reports, but far not all of them. So, what can be the problem?0 -
Open Site Explorer Top Pages https Title tag issue
Hello, everybody. I've noticed this strange thing in Top Pages reporting of Open Site Explorer. If i do a report for any website which doesn't have security certificate installed, such as http://www.hyperlinksmedia.com I get normal results, with title tag shown for every page, but, if i do a report for website with Security certificate, such as https://www.hyperlinksmedia.com, report is coming back for non-secure URL version (http:...), so, it says "No Title" for any pages. I wonder, if it influence PA and DA scores. Although, if i run full crawl test, then i shows all meta and title tags for SSL version of a website's url. Thanks!
Link Explorer | | seomozinator0 -
Backlink profile not current
How often are the backlink profiles updated? I'm researching competitor backlinks to add to our own link profile but it doesn't seem like not all the links are current. So how am I supposed to know which links are current and which have been erased? Can anyone please guide me though using the advanced filters CSV reports? I requested a report and got a blank excel spreadsheet. Please give me an example of what kind of things I should be searching for.
Link Explorer | | TurtleGirl0 -
Is there an option that's more precise over Open Site Explorer?
I've had folks explain to me before that OpenSiteExplorer is just an estimation, etc. but there are some fairly easy statistics that seem to be different and it makes me nervous that either its wrong or I'm doing something wrong. As you can see in the image, moz isn't read social metrics correctly. It actually used to be pretty spot on, but as you can see with Google+'s its off. Maybe not a big deal right? But for my clients new Moz Analytic print outs it makes somewhat of a difference. Any help? UlwQs3w
Link Explorer | | jonnyholt0