Best method of redirecting http to https on homepage
-
Hi everyone,
I'm looking to redirect all http requests to https for a site's homepage. It only needs to be for the homepage, not site wide.
What's the best method of doing this without losing pagerank or ranking?
I'm using IIS7.5 so I've been looking at a URL Rewrite or possibly this ASP.Net solution;
http://www.xdevsoftware.com/blog/post/Redirect-from-Http-to-Https-in-ASPNET.aspx
Or is a simple 301 or 302 (for some reason Microsoft's site says to do a 302 re-direct, though I'm not sure if this is great from an SEO perspective?) re-direct from http version to the https version the best method?
Also if the solution retained the URL query string that would be even better!
Any help appreciated! Thanks
-
Are you securing a lead-gen form? One thing to test first - have you done an A/B test of the in-page form vs. a large call-to-action button? I've seen testing go both ways. Sometimes, the in-page form drives more leads, but sometimes a clear call-to-action to a separate form is better (really seems to depend on the form and the industry). If the call-to-action works just as well, it would be much easier to secure the stand-along form than your home-page.
Going secure full-site would help solve some problems, although you do need full-site 301-redirects then, and you've got to make sure your servers can handle it (https: needs additional overhead). It's really tough to tell without knowing the nature/scope of the site.
I'd be happy to close the private question, but if you want to dive into details there, it might not be a bad idea. Seeing the site would really help, since this is a tricky issue.
-
Ooo, doesn't sound great.
Do you think if I was to do this it would be better to convert the whole site to HTTPS and enforce it site wide?
(I actually posted a private question on this as well hoping you'd answer it, but you've done it here! - can I close the private one??)
Thanks
-
301 is probably best here. There are two tricks here, though, and it can get messy:
(1) You'll need to link to the HTTPS version in your internal links as well.
(2) If you use relative links (like "/about.aspx"), then all the navigation links from your secure home-page will cause Google to crawl the rest of the site with HTTPS, possibly creating mass dupe content.
Practically, there's a fair amount of risk in just securing your home-page, and it goes beyond the home-page itself. I'd proceed with caution and really evaluate the pros and cons.
-
For SEO the 301 is the best and simple solution
-
Naghirniac - thanks for your answer.
Granted, but which is the best for SEO?
I'm thinking, surely I can just do a simple 301?
-
Shelly,
There are tree methods, all with their benefits and difficulties. They are: Redirect via a landing page, Redirect via a custom error and Redirect via URL manipulation.
You can take a look at this detailed post: http://www.iis-aid.com/articles/how_to_guides/three_methods_redirect_http_https
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
-
GoogleBot still crawling HTTP/1.1 years after website moved to HTTP/2
Whole website moved to https://www. HTTP/2 version 3 years ago. When we review log files, it is clear that - for the home page - GoogleBot continues to only access via HTTP/1.1 protocol Robots file is correct (simply allowing all and referring to https://www. sitemap Sitemap is referencing https://www. pages including homepage Hosting provider has confirmed server is correctly configured to support HTTP/2 and provided evidence of accessing via HTTP/2 working 301 redirects set up for non-secure and non-www versions of website all to https://www. version Not using a CDN or proxy GSC reports home page as correctly indexed (with https://www. version canonicalised) but does still have the non-secure version of website as the referring page in the Discovery section. GSC also reports homepage as being crawled every day or so. Totally understand it can take time to update index, but we are at a complete loss to understand why GoogleBot continues to only go through HTTP/1.1 version not 2 Possibly related issue - and of course what is causing concern - is that new pages of site seem to index and perform well in SERP ... except home page. This never makes it to page 1 (other than for brand name) despite rating multiples higher in terms of content, speed etc than other pages which still get indexed in preference to home page. Any thoughts, further tests, ideas, direction or anything will be much appreciated!
Technical SEO | | AKCAC1 -
How to replace a custom platform's homepage with another homepage from another platform domain?
I have a question regarding 301 permanent redirection. I currently have three websites, each hosted by different platform/CMS: one by Wix, another by WordPress, and a custom built CMS. I want to have all my three websites to be under the the custom build CMS's URL. What I am most concerned about is that I would like to have the home page of my Wix website to become my custom build CMS's new home page and the original content currently under my custom build CMS would be updated under new sub directories (in which I have access to the custom build CMS's source code). I have never done a 301 redirect before and I would like to know if there is any additional thing I need to do to my current custom build CMS besides assigning all my current content under my custom build CMS to new directories before executing 301 redirects?
Technical SEO | | sihanedutech0 -
Redirect Chain Issue
I keep running into a redirect chain issue trying to get a non-https/non-www domain to forward directly to the https/www domain on an Apache server. For background, we are forcing https and forcing www, but it appears the non-https/non-www domain is first redirecting to https/non-www and then redirecting again to the desired final https/www version of the domain. (Hope I am making sense here) I am trying to find code to add to my .htaccess file that will perform the following... 301 Redirect
Technical SEO | | FitzSWC
http://example.com directly to https://www.example.com (without 1st redirecting to https://example.com)
http://www.example.com directly to https://www.example.com Any experts in this with any thoughts? Thanks,
Fitz0 -
Tracing Redirects to a Site
I wonder if anyone has used any tools where you can trace the redirects pointing to a site? I know there are a number of tools out there that can be used to check where a URL redirects to, but I was wondering if anyone has used a tool where I could trace all redirects with the final URL? I am using this for competitor research so I don't have access to Analytics or Webmaster Tools.
Technical SEO | | BeattieGroup0 -
Redirecting homepage to subdirectory
Any issues with 301 redirecting a site's homepage to the English version subdirectory? Example: Original homepage: www.mysite.com New homepage: www.mysite.com/en/ The site is very old and very authoritative and trusted with lots of traffic.
Technical SEO | | SoulSurfer80 -
2 Versions of Same Homepage
We want to show new and returning visitors different versions of our homepage (same URL) What, if anything, should we use as the markup to tell Google what we are doing?
Technical SEO | | theLotter
Any danger that Google will think we are cloaking? Thanks!0 -
Product Level 301 Redirects Best Practice
When creating a 301 mapping file for product pages, what is best practice
Technical SEO | | Bucktown
for which version of the URL to redirect to? Base directory or one
subdirectory/category path. Example Old URL: www.example.com/clothing/pants/blue-pants-123 Which of the following should be the new target URL: www.example.com/apparel/pants/blue-pants-123 www.example.com/apparel/blue-apparel/blue-pants-123 www.example.com/apparel/collections/spring-collection/blue-pants-123 www.example.com/blue-pants-123 This is assuming the canonical tag will be www.example.com/blue-pants-123. Also, if www.example.com/blue-pants-123 cannot be reached via site
navigation would it be detrimental to make that the target URL if Google
cannot crawl that naturally? Thanks0 -
301 redirect issues
Hi all, I'm hoping someone will be able to help me with an extermley frustrating problem with 301 redirects in .htaccess. Basically I'm trying to redirect some old pages (from our old website) that stil rank to the new equivilent. For example - old url = www.domain.com/frames/news/company-news/news-reader.php?newsStoryID=395 New www.domain.com/news/article-title I've tried the simple redirect 301 /frames/news/company-news/news-reader.php?newsStoryID=395 http://www.domain.com/news/article-title But this doesnt work. I've also tried - RewriteEngine on
Technical SEO | | EclipseLegal
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^newsStoryID=395$
RewriteRule ^/news-reader.php$ http://www.domain.com/news/article-title/? [L,R=301] Could anyone help? I've followed lots of tutorials that all match the above but it just doesn't work! The only other thing within the htaccess file is from wordpress for pretty permalinks - BEGIN WordPress <ifmodule mod_rewrite.c="">RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]</ifmodule> END WordPress Many thanks in advance!0