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
-
Site Hack In Meta Description
Hey MOZ Community, I am looking for some help in identifying where the following meta description is coming from on this home page - https://www.apins.com. I have scrubbed through the page source without being able to locate where the content is being pulled from. The website is built on WordPress and metas were updated using Yoast, but I am wondering if an installed plugin could be the culprit. On top of this, I have had a developer take a look for the "hack" and they have assured that the issue has been removed. I have submitted the URL in GSC a couple of times to be re-indexed but have not had much luck. Any thoughts would be much appreciated, the displayed description is below. The health screening plays http://buyviagraonlineccm.com/ a significant and key role in detecting potentially life-threatening illnesses such as cancer, heart ...
Technical SEO | | jordankremer0 -
Http urls on a new https website
Hi, If a site is quite new and setup as https from the beginning why would http variations exist? There are 301 redirects in place from the http to the https variation and also canonical tags pointing back to the http variation? This seems contradictory to me. I'm not sure why the http variations exist at all but they have gone to the trouble of redirecting these to the https variation indicating that it is the variation of choice but at the same time using a canonical tag that indicates the http variation is the original/main url? Thanks
Technical SEO | | MVIreland0 -
Can anyone tell me why some of the top referrers to my site are porn site?
We noticed today that 4 of the top referring sites are actually porn sites. Does anyone know what that is all about? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | thinkcreativegroup1 -
Http:// to https:// 301 or 302 redirect
I've read over the Q & A in the Community, but am wondering the reasoning behind this issue. I know - 301's are permanent and pass links, and 302s are temporary (due to cache) and don't pass links. But, I've run across two sites now that 302 redirect http:// to https://. Is there a valid reason behind this? From my POV and research, the redirect should 301 if it's permanent, but is there a larger issue I am missing?
Technical SEO | | FOTF_DigitalMarketing1 -
Site verification in WMT
Hello all, I have a site and I want to set a preferred domain but when I do it says I need to verify my site but it gives me no ideas how to do that. I know that normally you have to do it when you set the account up but I had an analytics account for this domain first then just logged on with those details and I was in with no verification process. Cheers
Technical SEO | | jwdl0 -
Shutting down a site, where do I 301 it?
I'm working with a few international sites that we are going to collapse into one main site. Our current plan is to 301 the 4 other sites into our main site home page. Is this ok? Is there a better way to do this? Thanks
Technical SEO | | MarloSchneider0 -
How to move a site slowly
I've got a site that I started back in 2001 (www.jaaroncaststone.com) to sell what I was making, concrete countertops and sinks. Well we're going to be discontinuing the concrete products in a month or so and want to start pointing all the links from the old site to a new one dedicated to a single product (www.jaaron-wood-countertops.com). I don't want to do a full 301 on the old site just yet but can I put a canonical tag on the index and about us pages pointing to the new site now so the search engines start looking that way or should I wait and do a full 301 when the day comes to pull the old site?
Technical SEO | | JAARON0 -
How to turn WP site into Ecom site?
I have a couple of old wordpress sites that are old affiliate blogs. I currently sell products that are on amazon on these sites and sell quite a bit of volume. I have found a source and can afford the inventory to replace Amazon with my own product. So the dilema is how to turn these wordpress sites into ecommerce sites. The thing I am worried most about is that each site gets about 100-200 visitors a day for great buying keywords. I obviously don't want to lose my rankings. What are the options of turning a wordpress site into a store. I am not interested in plugins or some of the other solutions that make the store look very cheap and I would assume horribly convert. If you have inner pages ranking for keywords how does that work? Do the post pages become product pages? So to sum up I guess I am asking, what are the options that are of the higher quality that will also help me keep my rankings? Thanks
Technical SEO | | PEnterprises0