Does anyone know if an increase in 804 HTTPS errors will affect SEO rankings?
-
We recently moved our whole site over from HTTP to HTTPS and we went from having 106 keywords in the top 3 positions to 80 in just one week. The only thing that I can think of that caused the drop is the HTTPS changes to our site. Any input would be greatly appreciated.
-
Jennifer,
Some of your pages still reference http images - example https://www.tsheets.com/proadvisors-we-trust.php calls image http://cdn.tsheets.com/images/pros/denise-loter-koch.png
"Your connection to www.tsheets.com is encrypted with obsolete cryptography. However, this page includes other resources which are not secure. These resources can be viewed by others while in transit, and can be modified by an attacker to change the look of the page."
This is probably the reason for the 804 errors in Moz.
You should also check your internal links - some of them still point to the http version which is then again redirected to the https version
Example https://www.tsheets.com/infographics/time-tracking-infographic-hr-industry links to http://www.tsheets.com/infographics/time-tracking-infographic which is then redirected to https.
Unrelated to the https - but you might want to optimise the image on https://www.tsheets.com/online-invoicing-and-billing/ (https://www.tsheets.com/online-invoicing-and-billing/images/main-image-billing.png)
rgds
Dirk
-
This is very helpful. Thank you Dirk.
Just for clarification our site is https://www.tsheets.com
-
Hi Jennifer,
Migration to https has certain risks (like any other migration of your site). Without the actual url it's difficult to asses what's wrong with the site.
1. You can check here if the SSL was properly implemented: https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/
2. There is an interesting article on the technical migration on the site of Yoast (https://yoast.com/move-website-https-ssl/) - and about the potential SEO impacts here: http://moz.com/blog/seo-tips-https-ssl - even if you have already migrated you could check the different steps & check if you have skipped one.
3. Try crawling the site with Screaming Frog - it has a tab Protocol that can show you if all pages are on https or if some are missing. You can also check if all your internal links are updated to the https version.
4. I guess you have created a WMT for https version of your site - check if specific errors are listed.
5. Check pagespeed with google page speed analyser & webpagetest.org - check your scores. It possible that adding the https also made your site slower.
6. Sample pages in different browsers - do you get security warnings when visiting pages. These messages can really frighten your visitors, and have impact on stats like bounce rate & avg. visit duration, and as result have an impact on your rankings
7. Check vital stats in Analytics - like bounce rate, pages/visit, avg visit duration, avg time on page... - did you see major changes after migration. Also check if you see an increase in 404 pages.
Hope this helps in solving your problem,
Dirk
-
Hi Jennifer
Take a look at the questions and answers here as this has been discussed and referenced a resource I would have posted.
http://moz.com/community/q/804-https-ssl-error
If crawlers see issues with your servers and protocol, that could potentially be a negative checkmark against your site in the SERPS. I would discuss with your web dev and SEO team how to properly implement changes to fix these issues.
Hope this helps! 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
-
What to do about this subdomain for SEO?
This is a bit of an unusual structure and I'm having difficulty explaining the question so pardon my being a 'noob', haha. The website I'm working on has some content under Forums that is hosted on another domain. The main website is https://yournorthside.org.au/ and if you select under the main Nav > Forums > Lived Experience it will take you to https://yournorthside.saneforums.org/t5/Lived-Experience-Forum/ct-p/lived-experience-forum. So it's as if it's a subdomain. (notice even the appearance of the main menu changes, weird) Apparently, saneforums.org has a requirement for that content to be on that subdomain. So therefore it's not part of my sitemap and now crawled or indexed. My question is is this structure okay? What are the implications for SEO? Should I be looking to implement some type of no follow link or something? Or is it actually beneficial in terms of all their content gives us 'link juice'? Can you link me to any resources / articles that give further insight?
Technical SEO | | kelseyc0 -
Https Cached Site
Hi there, I recently switch my site to a new ecommerce platform which hosts the SSL certificate on their end so my site no longer has the HTTPS status unless a user is going through the checkout. Google has cached the HTTPS version of the site so in search it comes up sometimes which leads to a nasty warning that the site may not be what they are looking for. Is there a way to tell google NOT to look at the https version of the site anymore? Thanks! Bianca
Technical SEO | | TheBatesMillStore0 -
Website redesign: impact on SEO rankings?
Hi We're redesigning a website for a client whose SEO rankings are fairly strong, and are driving a good volume of enquiries through their website. We would like to do our best to ensure the redesign has a minimal impact on the rankings but aren't sure if there's anything in particular we should be doing to avert a severe dip in results. The content will be similar on many pages, with the major updates being from 2013 products to the 2014 suite. Layouts and images will, of course be updated, and we're going to do our best to keep the inbound links going to the correct place - any advice here would be much appreciated, too. We'd be really grateful for any suggestions for how to avoid a ranking disaster, and any major pitfalls we should look out for. Many thanks.
Technical SEO | | Kal-SEO0 -
Changing IP adress of Website will impact on ranking or not?
Hello, We have TLDs as below:
Technical SEO | | CommercePundit
bannerbuzz.combannerbuzz.co.uk
bannerbuzz.com.au
bannerbuzz.ca Within few days, We are moving in Magento Technology for 2 domains,
Bannerbuzz.com.au and Bannerbuzz.co.uk We have purchased new plan, So IP address of those 2 domains will be changed. So my question is, It will impact on my current Ranking or not?0 -
Ranking not improving
Our site is now 3 months old (although the domain is older) but rankings don't seem to be improving at all. We've got some good quality relevant links coming into the site, and the content is unique and often updated. Is there something holding the site back? Am I being impatient? the site is www.help-my-mobility.org Thanks.
Technical SEO | | jj34340 -
Assigning new separate IP for blog will harm SEO/ranking?
If i assign unique IP for my blog URL, will it hurt my ranking and seo ? Losing rank and visitor from Search engine after PANDA update
Technical SEO | | rimon56930 -
Does anyone use buzzfeed to creat links traffic and increase brand
Hi i would like to know if anyone uses http://www.buzzfeed.com to create links, gain traffic and increase brand awareness. I have signed up for an account but cannot get it to work and would like some help. I can get my content on there but cannot manage to get the links to work I signed up for this account a while back and a friend shown me how to use it but i have forgotten. here is my page http://www.buzzfeed.com/lifestylemagazine some links work and some links do not. what i am trying to do is to publish stories from my site as well as other sites and have the link included where you press the title and it goes to the site any help would be great
Technical SEO | | ClaireH-1848860 -
SEO - Localization
Hello Folks, I'm curious why my landing page is ranking at #1 on www.google.com.br ( brazil ). keyword: build wizard diablo 3. My lp is above well know domain names such as: wikia.com , blizzard.com , and also above a keyworded domain name: www.wizardbuilds.com/ Is just because my website is focus in brazilian google( .com.br ) or is because my landing page are better than the others( i don't think so)? Thanks.
Technical SEO | | augustos1