Website losing rank positions after https
-
Hi there.. we were having a good increase in rankings since using Moz and then we purchased an ssl certificate so our website would run under https... to make sure our website is only accessed through https, we have used a method on .htaccess (appache) to make sure the website is only reached through https, using:
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !=on
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%{HTTP_HOST}/$1 [R,QSA]after doing this, from our last crawl perspective, we lost several positions that we were increasing.. what have we done wrong ? we have to fix this asap, please help us...
-
I got it... managed to change as you've suggested, let's see next Moz crawl how we will behave... thank you so very much and the others for the help, a nice weekend for all!
-
GWT = Google Webmaster Tools. In there you can tell Google your preferred website and now you can add the https version as the preferred site. I'm not real clear on the format so hopefully someone will jump in here and MOZ will have more info soon. It is another way to avoid Google seeing the http and https as duplicate content and penalizing you.
Sorry I can't answer more directly!
-
Chris, thanks a lot! the above link helped me a lot !! by the way, what did you mean by "...have you set up GWT..." ? Didn't understand this part.. thanks a lot!
-
Take a look at this thread a few days ago:
http://moz.com/community/q/seo-best-practice-http-to-https
I think Moosa hit it when he mentioned the need for 301s. Also have you set up GWT for your now preferred https site?
-
Ok here is my understanding regarding this and I could be wrong on this so I would love if anyone in the community correct me if I am wrong.
Google usually consider http URLs and https URLs as different URLs so if your website will be working on both http and https the moz tool will give you duplicate content indications.
The reason I believe your rankings are going down is because you have rewrite the URLs but the link value is still on http versions I believe you need to use 301 redirects so that your link values can also shift to https versions.
Again I am not sure about this but this is something that I feel, it should work like this!
Hope this helps!
-
Not entirely sure why you would be loosing rankings as https is just a protocol. I have done the same thing after reading the post about google giving slight increase in rankings for adding https. I have not lost any ranks though. I'd keep working as normal and check back in a couple of weeks.
Good luck.
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
-
If my website uses CDN does thousands of 301 redirect can harm the website performance?
Hi, If my website uses CDN does thousands of 301 redirect can harm the website performance? Thanks Roy
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kadut1 -
How i get link to my website
hi i'm very new in seo want to have links to my website:www.warningbroker.com how i can get links to my website?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | marketing660 -
Preserving rankings after migration
I have acquired new a client who wants to migrate to a new platform. He also wants a 100% guarantee we maintain he Google search rankings. How realistic is this? Anyone got a checklist they can recommend?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | muzzmoz0 -
Do Website Engagement Rates Impact Organic Rankings?
Hello Experts, 1) Do Website Engagement Rates Impact Organic Rankings? What does Website Engagement Rates means? Is it a visitor stay on my page long time? Can anyone guide me what things we can include in website engagement rates Specifically for "Ecommerce Sites" ? Can I consider - 1) Reviews 2) Video's 3) Good Images and informative description 4) video's 5) highlighting relevant blog posts at category pages 6) email subscription etc as website engagement? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | wright3351 -
Web Site Ranking
Hi Folks, I made some changes on my website www.gemslearninginstitute.com and published it two days ago. It was ranking on Google first page for a few keywords. I did not touch the pages which were ranking on first page. Since then I am not seeing the website ranking on the Google. Does it take a few days to rank again? How can I ensure that next time if I update the website or publish some blog on my website then it should not effect the ranking. Secondly, if I would like to rank in three different cities then do I need to create separate pages for each city or how should I proceed with this. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | fslpso0 -
Weird rankings on my website, can't figure it out
Hey guys, One of my post popular pages for "Rust Hacks" use to be - http://www.ilikecheats.com/01/rust-cheats-hacks-aimbot/ Now when searching Google for site:ilikecheats.com rust hacks This page shows as the highest ranking - http://forum.ilikecheats.com/forums/221-Rust-Hacks-Rust-Cheats-Public-Forum What's weird is it seems the entire front end (Wordpress site) isn't ranking well anymore on page #1 of Google and the forums are ranking better currently. I did have a huge penalty from backlinks last year but cleared it. I got Yoast to do a site review and I'm cleaning up everything now. I also cleared most of the bad links via the disavow tool. Another example is when I search for "warz hacks" the forums show up in 4th place but the main website isn't showing at all back to page 10. If I search site:ilikecheats.com warz hacks the links directly to the main site doesn't show until page #2. So is this still a penalty that is carried over or is something else going on? Can't seem to figure it out, thanks in advance for looking. 😃 Any ideas what's going on and why the main pages no longer rank - http://www.ilikecheats.com
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Draden670 -
Rankings traffic percentages
Hi All, It seems that some keywords that are receiving a fairly high amount of monthly traffic such as 6000 hits are passing very little traffic to my website. for a few keywords recieving this amount of traffic my site ranks on page one. is there a breakdown of what percentage of traffic you should roughly get to your website depending on the rank for a certain keyword. example; position 1 send approximately % traffic to your site position 2 send approximately % traffic to your site etc thank you
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | wazza_19850 -
Rank went up, But?
ok, I have been optimizing a sit for a while and decided to drop the flash site build an HTML site instead for obvious reasons. But, as I was building the new site, BANG! a big jump in Google rank? How can this be, I thought out loud. Must be all my anchor text kicking in...So, I am left with this question...Or did google pick up on my new site as I was building it. I build it on a new DNS, then revert back to the main DNS... Drop the HTML site and continue my link getting with the main site? Or chalk it up under something else and roll with new site. I hope that was not to confusing
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SEObleu.com0