How to properly implement HTTPS?
-
We are looking at implementing HTTPS for our site. I have done a little research but can't find anything recent, http://moz.com/community/q/duplicate-content-and-http-and-https is the most recent thing I found.
Does everything in the answers still apply? Should I just do a 301 redirect to all new https? Or add a canonical tag?
-
Hi,
You shouldn't have to do anything in WMT as there isn't an option for preferred URLs between HTTPS and HTTP (whilst there is an option to say if you prefer http://site.com/ or http://www.site.com/). Google should pick up and acknowledge the 301s if you choose to do this, ranking only your HTTPS URLs.
It used to be the case that this wasn't recommended for SEO, but Google has come a long way with dealing with secure URLs. Just a quick search for inurl:https will show you how many sites are indexed with SSL URLs. Some have done it properly; some have not.
-
The first thing he talked about was 301s. If I did 301s would I have to do anything else? Is there anything I would need to do in Webmaster tools?
-
Matt Cutts talked about this on topic. I would pick only one and run with it (i.e. all SSL) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeFo4ytOk8M
Also a small public service announcement, please make certain your host is all patched up from Heartbleed.
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
-
HTTPS - implementation question
Hello, I am looking at a site on which they haven't 301'd http to https, so each URL is there whether you have http or https at the beginning. Why would a site owner not 301 to https? Is there any logical reason not to use 301? This particular website is simply using a canonical tag to point to the https version of each URL.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McTaggart0 -
Http and https protocols being indexed for e-commerce website
Hi team, Our new e-commerce website has launched and I've noticed both http and https protocols are being indexed. www.mountainjade.co.nz Our old website was http with only the necessary pages running https (cart, checkout etc). No https pages were indexed and you couldn't access a https page if you manually typed it into the browser. We outrank our competition by a mile, so I'm treading carefully here and don't want to undo the progress we made on the old site, so I have a few questions: 1. How exactly do we remove one protocol from the index? We are running on Drupal. We tried a hard redirect from https to http and excluded the relevant pages (cart, login etc from the redirect), but found that you could still access https pages if you we're in the cart (https) and then pressed back on the browser button for example. At that point you could browse the entire site on https. 2. Is the safer option to emulate what we had in place on the old website e.g http with only the necessary pages being https, rather than making the switch to sitewide https? I've been struggling with this one, so any help would be much appreciated. Jake S
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Jacobsheehan0 -
Fast/Easy Way to Implement Canonical tags in Bulk in Magento CMS?
Hello Amazing SEO Community! Quick Q for a client with a TON of duplicate content. (yikes!) My client is currently undertaking a large SEO project around canonical tagging for their thousands of duplicate pages. Currently, one product sits on multiple URLs and they are being indexed as different pages (with the same content). The issue is found across all products and other pages, and across their international sites as well. One core challenge they face now is lack of time/resources from their developer side. The solution we see to the duplicate content is to manually add a canonical tag to each of our tens of thousands of pages. Their content management system is Magento. Has anyone ever tackled canonicalization for a large site that uses Magento? Any more efficient solutions to manual tagging is ideal. Thanks in advance for your input. -Bonnie
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | accpar0 -
How do I add https version of site to Bing webmaster tools?
I could add my site to Google Webmaster tools with no problems, but when I try to add it in Bing webmaster tools it just redirects me to what I already have. Everything is staying the same but the switch from http to https. Anyone else experienced this? This is what I just received back from Bing and it doesn't seem right- I understand that you switched to the https version of your site and you're now trying to use the Site Move tool. However, in order to do this, you must verify the https version of your site first. You cannot do this because it just redirects you to the dashboard. We thank you for reporting this to us. We've investigated on this matter and can see that you're already put a redirect from the http to the https version of your site. We also checked the /BingSiteAuth.xml file and this also redirects to the https version. At this point, we suggest that you remove the current website (http version) that is verified through Bing Webmaster Tool and add your https domain. When done, use the Site Move tool. Thoughts?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EcommerceSite1 -
Dealing with non-canonical http vs https?
We're working on a complete rebuild of a client's site. The existing version of the site is in WordPress and I've noticed that the site is accessible via http and https. The new version of the site will have mostly or entirely different URLs. It seems that both http and https versions of a page will resolve, but all of the rel-canonical tags I've seen point to the https version. Sometimes image tags and stylesheets are https, sometimes they aren't. There are both http and https pages in Google's index. Having looked at other community posts about http/https, I've gathered the following: http/https is like two different domains. http and https versions need to be verified in Google Webmaster Tools separately. Set up the preferred domain properly. Rel-canonicals and internal links should have matching protocols. My thought is that we will do a .htaccess that redirects old URLs regardless of the protocol to new pages at one protocol. I would probably let the .css and image files from the current site 404. When we develop and launch the new site, does it make sense for everything to be forced to https? Are there any particular SEO issues that I should be aware of for a scenario like this? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GOODSIR0 -
Authorship, SEO and implementation at an institutional level
Hi Everyone, Does anyone know of a great case study on how an institution and/or company implemented authorship in an organized manner to benefit their SEO efforts as an organization? Moz, I noticed you guys seemed to have done this? Can you give me some high level guidelines? BTW this would be a great blog post. Thanks Carla
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Carla_Dawson0 -
If other websites implement our RSS feed sidewide on there website, can that hurt our own website?
Think about the switching anchors from the backlinks and the 100s of sidewide inlinks... I gues Google will understand that it's just a RSS feed right?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Zanox0 -
301 Re-direct Implementation & Its Possible Aftermaths
Hi all, I'm currently working on a domain that seems to be 'unofficially' blacklisted by Google. The reason behind my belief are, Ranking process of KW became stagnant. Current crawling and indexing rate has been decreased. Site performance deteriorate after every Search engine update or major data refreshes. And few major indications pointing out that search engines might started doubting its authority. The site is live n running for about 10+ yr and consists of 6000+ pages out of which 5000+ pages are indexed. The site also have some serious issues like, The site has been 2 times penalized by Google. The link ratio & inbound link quality of the site is quite unnatural (mostly directory links, links form spammy sites, bad-neighborhood links etc. ) The site is in flat file and not CMS, thus making it extremely difficult to maintain and update it. Due to the above reasons I was thinking of implementing 301 re-direction. I would like to redirect this poor performing existing domain to a new fresh one keeping the URL structure and files same and maintaining 1:1 redirection rules. I've read an awesome article by Danny Dover on 301 Re direction of a site here in SEOMOZ. It seems that if any one follow the steps mentioned there can actually get benefited by the overall re direction process. Now I'd like know your suggestion about following points: 1. Considering the factors that I've stated, do you think that it would be good to go with this re direction idea? 2. If 301 is implemented then what can be its immediate effects on current rankings and site performance? 3. Assuming that the ranks drowned or gets completely vanished from SERP, after what approx time period can be regain back? 4. Any other suggestion that might help me out to better understand the situation.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ITRIX0