Switching site from http to https. Should I do entire site?
-
Good morning,
As many of you have read, Google seems to have confirmed that they will give a small boost to sites with SSL certificates this morning. So my question is, does that mean we have to switch our entire site to https? Even simple information pages and blog posts? Or will we get credit for the https boost as long as the sensitive parts of our site have it?
Anybody know? Thanks in advance.
-
Thanks for all the response. I implemented the switch yesterday, so as of this morning the whole site is for https. We already had an SSL certificate for our payment area, so luckily it was not a cost issue. My concern is primarily the slowdown issue as AltecDesigh mentioned (we only have a mid-range server) and any drop in SERP, since essentially from what I have been reading this is like 301'ing to a new domain.
Here are the steps I went through. Not sure if they are the best option, but there were no step by step instructions yet on google so hopefully this will help people who are planning to implement it themselves.
1) Added the SSL certificate (in case people have not done this yet).
2) Implemented a site wide switch through my .htaccess file using this code:RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteRule (.*) https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]3) Went through the site, page by page with the Google Chrome developers console open. That help me find any errors. The most common ones were including images or external files through their "http" address. Tedious, but easily fixable by simply doing a Replace All on the files and replacing them with a "https".
**4) **Reported the domain change in GWT (which to me seems like an odd thing to have to do)
5) That was it. It took me one day to implement across our site with about 2000 pages. If it even helps a bit, that will be a worthwhile use of my time.I also had to add a plugin to our wordpress blog since for some reason the .htaccess changes were not working for our blog in a subfolder. I will try to come back and update the results in a few weeks so other mozzers can see if this worked for me, or if they should avoid it.
Thanks again for all the feedback, it helped us make the decision. In general I actually like this move of Google (unlike many of the others they have done). Let's see if it makes any difference.
-
the way I read the information from Google is that if you have all your pages "site wide" redirect too SSL they will factor that into rankings. If you only enable the SSL on sensitive shopping cart pages you will not get credit in Google's eyes.
Its an interesting move, and in general the only "negative" aspect of doing this is site speed. The SSL "handshake" slows down site loading times, but it should be a very small amount. I'm guessing that in the future google will provide some kind of "reward" for sites that do this... possibly a small badge or emblem on the serp page saying something like "secure site".
-
For those unaware of the news, here is a link to the Wall Street Journal article:
-
Hi,
I'd advise switching your whole site across.
It's not necessary to do so, but with the way things are going, it's better to be safe than sorry.
Since Google have decided that it is important and will have an impact on rankings, there is no harm doing it on every page. They aren't going to penalise you in any way for doing so.
The change is only affecting 1% of all global search terms at the moment so I wouldn't panic yet. However, if they find this to be a very successful way of ranking, it could rapidly be spread across a much higher percentage.
We are in the process of implementing the change ourselves and are going to do it sitewide.
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
-
What are the SEO considerations when migrating a whole site from http to https
Hi Mozzers, I'm in the process of migrating a whole site, which has excellent rankings built through ongoing SEO over the years, from http to https. What is the safest way of doing this, while maintaining rankings? I'm assuming 301 redirect of every page from http to https? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | A_Q1 -
Migration to https
Hi there, For several reasons we consider to switch from http to https. My question about this: Does this change impact organic search results since the URL changes? Is a simple 301 on the highest level enough to keep all of our positions with every page? Are there any other possible issues we might think about before deciding? I'm talking about a webshop with over 50k indexed pages and lots of running marketing channels all setted up based on the http URL structure. Thanks in advance.
Technical SEO | | MarcelMoz
Marcel0 -
HTML Site for Speed
I have a few small sites and landing pages on Wordpress that I want to load a lot quicker than they do. It occurred to me that if there is not a lot of content management necessary, I should simply make the static web pages straight html instead of trying all the modifications necessary to get some Wordpress sites and themes to load quicker. I have noticed the html sites I have load lighting fast on slow hosting service. Is this a good idea, can anyone think of drawbacks to it? Security? Responsiveness? SEO? And what about taking some company's sites with blog straight html so the home page loads quick, and then using Wordpress for the blog?
Technical SEO | | phogan0 -
Mobile site domain authority
Hello, I think this may be a coding issue, but hoping someone can help me. I am still having issues with our mobile site ranking, even though we created redirects/canonical to identify similar content between desktop version and mobile. I did notice through MOZ analysis of backlinks that we have no domain authority. If the mobile site is automatically detected dependent on the user, shouldn't we also have the same domain authority? How does that work exactly? How can we build up the domain authority for our mobile site? Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks
Technical SEO | | lfrazer0 -
Linking out to authoritive sites from my ecommerce site
Good afternoon SEOmoz community. I was looking for a specific answer or advice or opinion about linking out to other sites. My Site www.tacticalbootstore.com has been undergoing a complete content rewrite. In the process we have been told and read where it can be good to link out to other authoritive sites. One of the pages we have rewritten is here. http://www.tacticalbootstore.com/belleville-boots-sizing-chart-a-97.html We have not added the graphics yet as they are being built now. This is just an informational page about sizing of a particular manufacturers boots. Once you get to the bottom of the text we have added a link to the actual manufacturers page. Is this helpful for us in the SERPS or not? Thank you for your time. Chris
Technical SEO | | scamper0 -
Https vs http sitemap
I have a site that does a 301 redirect from http to https I currently have a sitemap auto submitted to google webmaster tools using the http pages. (because i didnt have https before) should I disable that sitemap for http and create one for the https only?
Technical SEO | | puremobile0 -
HTTP headers
don't know why I did not see it before but my server "Expires:" tage is set to: Expires: Thu, 19 Nov 1981 08:52:00 GMT Also I have no "Last-modified" http header either Crazy! How much do you guys think this type of thing hurts a site?
Technical SEO | | kevin48030 -
Optimize flash site
Hello, How can we optimize a site like this - http://www.ziba.com.au/ . The whole site is in flash. What are the alternatives ?
Technical SEO | | seoug_20050