Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      Let your business shine with Listings AI
      Moz Local

      Let your business shine with Listings AI

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Reporting & Analytics
    4. How does switching to HTTPS effect Google Analytics?

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    How does switching to HTTPS effect Google Analytics?

    Reporting & Analytics
    5
    8
    23945
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • EcommerceSite
      EcommerceSite last edited by

      We are looking at making our site HTTPS. We have been using the same Google Analytics account for years and I like having the historical data. All of our pages will be the same, we are just going to redirect from the http to https. Does anything need to be done with Google Analytics? What about other addons such as Optimizely, Crazy Egg, or Share this?

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • alecfwilson
        alecfwilson last edited by

        I'm not a netsec expert or a technical SEO expert, but I'm running SEO for my company and have been looking into this for a while now. The tips I can give you are: add rel="canonical" tags to all the http:// versions of your site pointing to the https:// version. Once you get an SSL certificate, make sure to claim all 4 variations of your URL (http://, http://www., https://, https://www.) in webmaster tools and designate which is canonical (this will just make sure the Googlebot knows which is canonical, you'll still want to add the tag to your site pages). Finally, make sure that if you do decide to switch to HTTPS:// (which I highly recommend - some people, myself included, now instinctively use https:// over http:// and if someone points a link at https:// when you aren't using it, Chrome will display a yellow warning interstitial and a red X over the https:// in the address bar), get an SHA-2 certificate, rather than SHA-1, as Google is sunsetting it in the next year. To the comment on page load speed - Https:// slows page load down, but generally not by a substantial amount (also, there are plenty of other ways to address page load time that can offset the hit, and if you've already done all that, the page load hit won't hurt you, since you're in better shape than everyone else). Also, while Google's incorporation of https:// as a signal so far has not seemed to impact results much, it's a near certainty that, based on Google's current behavior, it will become less of a signal and more of a necessity, and as more websites adopt it, the less the slight page load hit will matter. Websites are essentially required to adopt it sometime in their lifecycle, as growth makes security much more of a concern.

        Further reading on SHA-1 and SHA-2:

        https://konklone.com/post/why-google-is-hurrying-the-web-to-kill-sha-1

        http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com/2014/09/gradually-sunsetting-sha-1.html

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • bjs2010
          bjs2010 last edited by

          We know that:

          1. Site Speed is a Google ranking signal
          2. https is now a ranking signal also
            2a) https slows down a site
          3. Is it worth going https?
          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • GoogleDowner
            GoogleDowner @EcommerceSite last edited by

            Yeah Microsoft, for some reason, likes to make things a little more complex than it needs to be. Here are a couple of links I found that might help:

            http://www.iis.net/configreference/system.webserver/httpredirect

            http://forums.iis.net/t/1190228.aspx?Specific+url+301+redirection

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • EcommerceSite
              EcommerceSite @GoogleDowner last edited by

              We are using an IIS 7.5 server so I am looking into the best way to do 301 redirects in that. Seems like it would be much easier on a Linux based system.

              GoogleDowner 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • GoogleDowner
                GoogleDowner last edited by

                Pay particular attention to load speed. HTTPS encrypts everything and sends it to the client browser where it is then decrypted. If certain pages are loading much slower or if you are using the same images/resources on multiple pages you will want to look at caching various resources.

                As Highland mentioned, you'll want to make sure the code is using relative URLs and not hard coded "http" URLs because that will not only impact load time but it may give the visitor an undesirable experience if the site is all messed up. If you are on linux make sure that your .htaccess file does a 301 from http requests to https for obvious reasons.

                I hope that helps!

                EcommerceSite 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • EcommerceSite
                  EcommerceSite @Highland last edited by

                  I am using HTTP Watch right now and that seems to give a pretty good list of all my HTTP requests. Any other things to look for? I have been researching as much as I can find and want to make sure I get this all right on the first run.

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • Highland
                    Highland last edited by

                    The main thing you'll want to make sure is that all your JavaScript libraries and images are loading from HTTPS and not HTTP. If you don't, the browser may not load those resources or may show your site as not secured. The default Analytics code will do this for you, but make sure your other libraries are doing so. A great tool for finding any you've missed is Firebug, a Firefox addon. You open it up, load your website and on the Net tab you can see the URL of every resource loaded and even break them down by type (image, JS, etc).

                    Analytics itself is not affected by HTTPS. Your metrics will continue to load just fine.

                    EcommerceSite 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • 1 / 1
                    • First post
                      Last post

                    Got a burning SEO question?

                    Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                    Start my free trial


                    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.

                    • See all categories

                    Related Questions

                    • lmoraes

                      Paid traffic or "Paid Search" is not showing in my Google Analytics

                      Hi, I have two campaigns running in Google Adwords or Google Ads now and I saw in Google Ads account that I had 5 clicks today (09/18/2018) but when I try to search for this clicks in my Google Analytics in ACQUISITION > All Traffic > Channels I don't find nothing about "Paid Search" or something like that. Bellow is a picture of my Google Analytics account to prove it. The accounts are linked and I can find the 2 campaigns in the Analytics. How can I interpret this picture? Where the paid traffic is showing? or not showing there? Thanks Leandro uvAtrsg

                      Reporting & Analytics | | lmoraes
                      0
                    • Armen-SEO

                      Tracking 301 redirect traffic in Google Analytics

                      if I 301 redirect www.mywebsite.com to go to www.yourwebsite.com, how can I track the traffic in Google Analytics that is coming from mywebsite.com??  I don't think that's a referral traffic, is it?

                      Reporting & Analytics | | Armen-SEO
                      0
                    • BoomDialogue69

                      How can we view traffic from specific Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Reddit accounts in Google Analytics?

                      Dear Moz Community, This is a Google Analytics question. Using Google Analytics, we're trying to identify trends of visitors on a website from specific social media accounts, i.e: twitter.com/account-x facebook.com/account-x youtube.com/account-x reddit.com/r/account-x Ideally, we would like to be able to see the success rate for specific posts on these social media accounts, and how users engaged on the website after arriving from clicking a link on one of these accounts. Is this drill-down feature currently possible in Google Analytics? Many thanks for helping!

                      Reporting & Analytics | | BoomDialogue69
                      0
                    • 10SL

                      Google Analytics Organic Search Keywords Suddenly Displaying FulL Urls

                      In my Google Analytics, the top keywords for Organic Search are suddenyl displaying full URLs. For example, now the third and fourth keywords are http://www.domain.com/highly-specific-URL. These have all started recently around the same day, July 12th. I've checked back, and we've made no internal changes to the site around that time that could affect this. Any thoughts on this? Thanks! P.S. It might be related to rich snippets, but I cannot tell at this point.

                      Reporting & Analytics | | 10SL
                      0
                    • Towelsrus

                      How do I manually add transactions to Google Analytics

                      We are seeing Google Analytic's drop transaction on our site so therefore all the figures are skewed. Is there a way I can manually add transactions to GA to cover the missing one?

                      Reporting & Analytics | | Towelsrus
                      0
                    • endlessrange

                      What is s.ytimg.com in google analytics?

                      My clients GA reports 273 visits from s.ytimg.com.  I go to the site, it doesn't exist. I googled it, there were some code with s.ytimg.com in it, but nothing I could understand. Anybody have an idea where this comes from?

                      Reporting & Analytics | | endlessrange
                      0
                    • inhouseseo

                      How can I verify if someone is Google Analytics certified?

                      I am looking to hire an IC to help with analytics. I need to know how I can verify if they are GA certified. They gave me a link to a http://www.starttest.com profile. Is that legit?

                      Reporting & Analytics | | inhouseseo
                      0
                    • daracreative

                      Setting Up Google Analytic with Sub Folder Sites

                      What is the best way of setting up Google Analytic for a website that has many sub folders? The main site is example.com and it has 40 sub folder sites like example.com/uk example.com/France etc etc Would it be advised to track a single domain in Google Analytic then create filters for the sub folder sites. Filters > Include traffic from > Sub directories Also with this method is it possible to view overall incoming website stats for everything? Previous experience would be great with this thanks 🙂

                      Reporting & Analytics | | daracreative
                      0

                    Get started with Moz Pro!

                    Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                    Start my free trial
                    Products
                    • Moz Pro
                    • Moz Local
                    • Moz API
                    • Moz Data
                    • STAT
                    • Product Updates
                    Moz Solutions
                    • SMB Solutions
                    • Agency Solutions
                    • Enterprise Solutions
                    Free SEO Tools
                    • Domain Authority Checker
                    • Link Explorer
                    • Keyword Explorer
                    • Competitive Research
                    • Brand Authority Checker
                    • Local Citation Checker
                    • MozBar Extension
                    • MozCast
                    Resources
                    • Blog
                    • SEO Learning Center
                    • Help Hub
                    • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                    • How-to Guides
                    • Moz Academy
                    • API Docs
                    About Moz
                    • About
                    • Team
                    • Careers
                    • Contact
                    Why Moz
                    • Case Studies
                    • Testimonials
                    Get Involved
                    • Become an Affiliate
                    • MozCon
                    • Webinars
                    • Practical Marketer Series
                    • MozPod
                    Connect with us

                    Contact the Help team

                    Join our newsletter
                    Moz logo
                    © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                    • Accessibility
                    • Terms of Use
                    • Privacy

                    Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.