Http vs https: which is better for seo / usability
-
Hi All,
Firstly thank you for taking the time to look. My dilemma is as follows;
I have a site on wordpress that I have added an ssl certificate to and the entire domain is secure.
The site has a mix of content including a blog area and product pages.
My question is what does Google prefer, http or https or does it not matter
As i see it my option is to keep the entire site as https and enforce this sitewide so all non secure content redirects to the https version or i could enforce https just in the cart and or product pages, all other content, homepage, blog, about us, contact us etc would be http.
From an seo perspective ie google search engine, is their a best way to proceed?
Finally, as i currently have http and https both displaying ie duplicate, what would be the way to fix this, i have yoast plugin so can set the canonical there and can also edit my robot.txt.
I have come across this resource (http://www.creare.co.uk/http-vs-https-duplicate-content) and am wondering if this guideline is still correct or is there another more current way, if so I would be grateful if you could point me in the right direction.
thanks in advance.
-
Hi tahirekhanvc,
I'm a big fan of Matt Cutts, and you should be, too. Check out what he has to say about duplicate content: http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2319706/Googles-Matt-Cutts-A-Little-Duplicate-Content-Wont-Hurt-Your-Rankings
I had a similar issue with a client a year or so ago. As I'm sure you know, secure pages are encrypted and need to be decrypted, which takes more time and requires more resources. And with that, speed may become an issue, and speed is a ranking factor.
A good rule of thumb is to secure pages that communicate private data, i.e. contact pages, carts, etc. If you are offering some sort of security service, or if your business model requires earning a great deal of trust from your visitors, then go secure the site. Now I'm talking about sites like https://squareup.com/ (FYI, I actually do not recommend that service but you can see the home page is secure). And that company actually takes it one step further with an EV SSL, where you can show your company name in the green bar. Go for a purpose, but not SEO in particular.
Matt went over this about the time Facebook switched to https. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4801641 Now it's up to you to make the call, but make it and stick with it. What you don't want to do is go back and forth a couple times trying to rank better thinking that this is a major problem.
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
-
Does my website builder/host have an effect on my SEO?
My SEO ranking has been suffering over the last year despite all my efforts. Do you think my website builder/host could negatively effect my SEO? I'm using something called jigsy. They seem really good in the sense that they are very responsive to requests for help, but I have found them to be limiting at times.
Technical SEO | | joebordersmft
I cant:
-edit H1 and H2 tags on individual pages...the same ones are plastered throughout the site as part of a "theme"
-Do any link cannonicalization, which Moz Pro is marking me with 282 critical issues for.
-and I've had numerous times I've had to search out HTML code to paste into my page because they're missing something. ...I may have just answered my question myself, but I'm wondering how much of a problem all of this might be for my SEO? I was looking at switching to something like squarespace recently but it looks like Jigsy has thought of that and doesn't have any way for me to transfer my site to another service..... ugh! site:www.joeborders.com1 -
No descripton on Google/Yahoo/Bing, updated robots.txt - what is the turnaround time or next step for visible results?
Hello, New to the MOZ community and thrilled to be learning alongside all of you! One of our clients' sites is currently showing a 'blocked' meta description due to an old robots.txt file (eg: A description for this result is not available because of this site's robots.txt) We have updated the site's robots.txt to allow all bots. The meta tag has also been updated in WordPress (via the SEO Yoast plugin) See image here of Google listing and site URL: http://imgur.com/46wajJw I have also ensured that the most recent robots.txt has been submitted via Google Webmaster Tools. When can we expect these results to update? Is there a step I may have overlooked? Thank you,
Technical SEO | | adamhdrb
Adam 46wajJw0 -
403s vs 404s
Hey all, Recently launched a new site on S3, and old pages that I haven't been able to redirect yet are showing up as 403s instead of 404s. Is a 403 worse than a 404? They're both just basically dead-ends, right? (I have read the status code guides, yes.)
Technical SEO | | danny.wood1 -
SEO Issues
Hi, We have created a moving cost calculator tools and other moving company can added this tools their website. This is the code: [ <iframe src="http: www.enakliyat.com.tr="" fiyat-hesapla.aspx"="" height="554" width="400" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="border:none;"> ] when the other moving company added this code their websites, tool also works on the site and the tool make the referrals traffic our site.** Is it right using this method?**</iframe src="http:> http://www.enakliyat.com.tr/evden-eve-nakliyat-fiyatlari-hesaplama/ here is the tool
Technical SEO | | iskq0 -
DISQUS COMMENTS backlinks-good for seo? YES/NO?
DISQUS COMMENTS backlinks-good for seo? YES/NO? I have just started commenting on "powered by disquus" websites in the Disqus comments box and left a link to my website in the name field! Having googled whether Disqus comments backlinks are any good for seo purposes i have discovered that there is a 50/50 view on the subject with some people saying they are a "goldmine" for getting high PR backlinks and others saying they are a waste of time because googlebot cannot read Java. My own experience of commenting on Disqus powered websites is that wordpress blogs powered by disqus comments ARE INDEXED by GOOGLE and the "BACKLINK IS IN THE SOURCE OF THE PAGE" When i comment on normal websites using the Disqus comment system i have found that my Disqus comments ARE NOT indexed by Google and there IS NO BACKLINK in the page source! Has anybody got any views on whether Disqus comments backlinks are any good?
Technical SEO | | Freebetsuk2 -
SEO-MOZ bar question on root vs subdomain / canonicalization issues
When I look at the SEO-MOZ bar for our site and click next to subdomain (# links from #domains) it shows my main incoming links etc. but when I click on root domain ity shows mydomain/default.asp and 4 incoming links as well as a message that says this url redirects to another url. Does this imply canonicalization issues or is there a 301 redirect to my non /default.asp correcting this issue. Thanks kindly, Howard
Technical SEO | | mrkingsley0 -
Does anyone see benefit in .com/en vs .com/uk for a UK site?
The client is already on /en and in my opinion there is not much to be gained by switching to /uk
Technical SEO | | Red_Mud_Rookie0 -
SEO LINKS
New to S.E.O. so excuse my naivety. I have made lots of new links some of them paid for e.g. Best of the Web but I don’t see any change in the latest competitive link analysis. Some of the links we have been accepted for just do not show. Also the keywords we are trying to promote the most have disappeared off the radar for over 2 weeks now. I think we have followed the optimization suggestions correctly. Please could you enlighten me. Regards Paul www.curtainpolesemporium.co.uk
Technical SEO | | CPE0