How does switching to HTTPS effect Google Analytics?
-
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?
-
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
-
We know that:
- Site Speed is a Google ranking signal
- https is now a ranking signal also
2a) https slows down a site - Is it worth going https?
-
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
-
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.
-
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!
-
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.
-
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.
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
-
Can Segment capture organic traffic? If so is it more reliable than Google Analytics?
Hi mozzers, We just learned that our standard GA hasn't been as reliable as we hoped so and we are trying to find other ways to track organic sessions. Which solution would you consider? Is Segment one of them? If so, is it more reliable than Google Analytics? Thanks
Reporting & Analytics | | Ty19861 -
UTM Links Showing Up as Separate Pages in Google Analytics
Hey everyone, I was just looking at landing pages in Google Analytics, and in addition to just the URL of the landing page, the UTM links are being listed as separate pages. Is this normal? I anticipated seeing the landing page URL and then using the secondary dimension to see source/medium. If this isn't normal, what would I check next?
Reporting & Analytics | | rachelmeyer0 -
Tracking time spent on a section of a website in Google Analytics
Hi, I've been asked by a client to track time spent or number of pages visited on a specific section of their website using Google Analytics but can't see how to do this. For example, they have a "golf" section within their site and want to measure how many people either visit 5 page or more within the golf section or spend at least 6 minutes browsing the various golf section pages. Can anyone advise how if this can be done, and if so, how I go about it. Thanks
Reporting & Analytics | | geckonm0 -
Tracking in Google Analytics
My site has just recently (or maybe not so recently...) had a great deal of https URL's indexed (I was really only able to find this out thanks to the recent update to the GWT Index Status). It appears that Googlebot picked up an ssl somewhere (I already know where) on my site and then proceeded to crawl and index pages with https rather than http. Since I understand the issue, it should be an easy fix. My question is, does Google Analytics support (track) both http AND https for one site, or would I need to set up two different tracking codes for http and https? I figured that I might as well grab some data from the https pages that are indexed before I try and remove them. I've done a little research on using Groupings/Groups but I figured I would reach out to the MOZ community to see if anyone else has worked with a similar issue. Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | GalcoIndustrial0 -
How can I get the Google Analytics advanced segments beta?
Is there a way that I can get access to the Google Analytics new segmenting features? I've been reading about them for some months now, but still nothing in my GA account. Thank you in advance.
Reporting & Analytics | | LinusB0 -
Funnel Visualization in Google Analytics
Hello. I have a question about funnel visualization in Google Analytics where there is an eCommerce goal (i.e. add to cart, shipping, purchase) with the first step being mandatory. Issue:
Reporting & Analytics | | Unity
The amount of completed purchases reported in GA doesn't match the actual transaction figure via the eCommerce platform. Question:
I was wondering if anyone knows why this occurs? I have a few ideas on why however I haven't been able to locate any supporting evidence. So I was hoping to generate a few ideas from the SEOMoz community to help me investigate further. Any ideas welcome! Much thanks,
Davinia0 -
Do target underscore blank links adversely effect Google analytics
Good morning from 17 degrees C about to rain again wetherby UK... On this page http://business.leedscityregion.gov.uk/invest/sectors/ there are a number of links that pop open new windows despite being internal links 😞 My question is please... "If an internal link to a site is set to _blank and pops open a new window are there any detrimental affects to google analytics tracking e.g. increased exits etc" Any insights welcome 🙂
Reporting & Analytics | | Nightwing0 -
Transfer Google Analytics data from one user to another?
Long story short, two weeks of analytics data are stored on a different profile from the rest of the year's data. Is there a way to export all data from a date range, and then import it to another account? Thanks for your help.
Reporting & Analytics | | AmericanOutlets0