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
-
NO Meta description pulling through in SERP with react website - Requesting Indexing & Submitting to Google with no luck
Hi there, A year ago I launched a website using react, which has caused Google to not read my meta descriptions. I've submitted the sitemap and there was no change in the SERP. Then, I tried "Fetch and Render" and request indexing for the homepage, which did work, however I have over 300 pages and I can't do that for every one. I have requested a fetch, render and index for "this url and linked pages," and while Google's cache has updated, the SERP listing has not. I looked in the Index Coverage report for the new GSC and it says the urls and valid and indexable, and yet there's still no meta description. I realize that Google doesn't have to index all pages, and that Google may not also take your meta description, but I want to make sure I do my due diligence in making the website crawlable. My main questions are: If Google didn't reindex ANYTHING when I submitted the sitemap, what might be wrong with my sitemap? Is submitting each url manually bad, and if so, why? Am I simply jumping the gun since it's only been a week since I requested indexing for the main url and all the linked urls? Any other suggestions?
Web Design | | DigitalMarketingSEO1 -
I am Using <noscript>in All Webpage and google not Crawl my site automatically any solution</noscript>
| |
Web Design | | ahtisham2018
| | <noscript></span></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="line-number"> </td> <td class="line-content"><meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0;url=errorPages/content-blocked.jsp?reason=js"></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="line-number"> </td> <td class="line-content"><span class="html-tag"></noscript> | and Please tell me effect on seo or not1 -
Business Services via Index Page or Dedicated Pages?
We're in the process of building a new website for our Business (B2B Event Services) and we've hit a design snag. Our designer wants to combine all of our business services information (there are six service lines) into a single Index Page titled "Services". Beyond this creating a needlessly long page to scroll through, I'm worried this will negatively impact our ability to SEO for each service line, as we wouldn't have any intention of letting people visit the individual pages from within the site. Our current site features individual pages which, in my opinion, is how we should build our new site. That being said, I'm completely open to any ideas that will further enhance usability and searchability. Any clarification would be greatly appreciated!
Web Design | | SHWorldwide1 -
Will keyword optimization for a landing page impact SEO for subsequent pages?
For example, if I optimize keyword “pleurx” really well on our landing page, I'd like to know if subsequent
Web Design | | Todd_Kendrick
pages linking back to that landing page will rank higher than before for “pleurx”
even if “pleurx” wasn't optimized on the subsequent pages. Thanks! -Andrew0 -
Is it better to redirect a url or set up a landing page for a new site?
Hi, One of our clients has got a new website but is still getting quite a lot of traffic to her old site which has a page authority of 30 on the home page and has about 20 external backlinks. It's on a different hosting package so a different C block but I was wondering if anyone could advise if it would be better to simply redirect this page to the new site or set up a landing page on this domain simply saying "Site has moved, you can now find us here..." sort of idea. Any advice would be much appreciated Thanks
Web Design | | Will_Craig0 -
How Does Google differentiate a keyword you are optimizing for and a non-keyword?
So, let's say that my company is called John's Business Consulting and I offer outsourced HR work (recruiting, evaluating, personality assessments, background checks). So for my home page I want "Business Consulting" to be my keyword that I want to rank for. But "recruiting services", "talent development" are all words that describe a service that I offer and could potential be keywords, how do I get Google to not dilute my authority for "business consulting"?
Web Design | | wlw20090 -
Adding another Question Topic
I am wondering if SEOMoz would consider adding a Question Topic called Webmasters. I see many questions that require answers from webmasters and I have some questions to ask that would require a webmaster to answer. Would it be better to find the answers on another platform? If the question is yes any recommendations on which forums are good for these types of questions?
Web Design | | polarking1 -
Infinite Page Scrolling for e-commerce Product Catetegories
Hi There, I would like to know what's the pros and cons of Infinite Page Scrolling for e-commerce Product Categories that have over 700 products. Sample here Secondly how will this effect our on page SEO as far as google concerned? Many Thanks
Web Design | | Jvalops0