Moving to TLS and disavow file
-
I'm considering the move to TLS/SSL obviously will be setting up the version in Search Console, do I need to re-upload the disavowal file previously generated before the move?
Look forward to your response.
-
I appreciate your comprehensive article, However, may I kindly point out my question was to do with Disavow in Google Search Console, Not the implementation of secure.
-
1. Get and Install Certificates
Buy a 2048-bit TLS/SSL SHA-2 secure certificate from a Certificate Authority (CA)
Generate some documents so that the CA can issue a signed certificate
Send the CA what they need (your public key and certificate signing request)
Install certificates on your servers
2. Enable HTTPS on Your Servers
Configure your server for HTTPS. Check out these configuration tips for popular servers.
Test properly functioning using an external testing tool. Here’s a good one.
Set a reminder to update your secure certificate before it expires.
3. Code & Configuration Changes
Update site content to request https resources
Update internal links to point to https pages or consider making internal links relative
Use protocol relative URIs. Example: (see note below)
Add self-referencing rel canonical tag to every page, pointing to your HTTPS URIs
Change all Ad calls to work with HTTPS
Update any internal tools, such as Optimizely or CrazyEgg, to work with HTTPS
Update legacy redirects to eliminate chained redirects (see note below)
Update OpenGraph, Schema, Semantic markup etc. to point to HTTPS
Update social sharing buttons to preserve share counts
4. Robots.txt, XML Sitemaps, Search Console and Analytics
Create and verify a new property for the HTTPS site in Google Search Console
Create a new XML sitemap file that points to your HTTPS URLs and upload it to the new property in Search Console
Create a new robots.txt file for the HTTPS site and copy over all existing rules. Include a Sitemap link to the new HTTPS XML sitemap.
Remove all rules from the HTTP robots.txt file, except for the Sitemap link, and leave it in place. This is to encourage bots to crawl and follow all redirects.
Copy any existing disavow file and upload it to the new HTTPS property in Search Console
Note: Don’t use the “Change of Address” feature in Google Search Console. That’s used for migrations to new domains.
5. Redirect HTTP to HTTPs
Deploy the redirect code
Redirect HTTP to HTTPS on IIS (7.x and higher)
Redirect HTTP to HTTPS on Apache
Redirect HTTP to HTTPS on Nginx
Include exceptions to any global redirect directives for your existing robots.txt and XML sitemap files
6. Follow-Up (after the release)
Use a tools, like SSL Check, to scan your site for non-secure content
Check HTTPS redirects and legacy redirects to ensure they work correctly. Check for long redirect chains using a tools that captures the header responses (I like Redirect Path by Ayima). Check for proper redirect functionality from both www and non-www, with and without trailing slashes, etc.
Use “Fetch as Google” tool and submit your Home page and other key pages to speed up the indexing process. I use the “Crawl this URL and its direct links” option.
Monitor the Index Status report in Search Console. The HTTP property should eventually go to zero, and the HTTPS should increase. Take this a step further by calculating the indexation rates of each XML sitemap and monitor them over time.
Monitor the Crawl Errors report in Search Console and address errors, as appropriate
When most new (HTTPS) URLs are already indexed, remove the legacy sitemap link from Robots.txt
Update incoming links that are within your control to point to HTTPS (eg. links to your site from social media profiles)
7. Turn on Strict Transport Security (HSTS)
Once you’re absolutely sure the entire site is working with HTTPS, use HSTS to improve performance by ensuring the browser “remembers” to send all requests to your site to https based on a policy you set. Keep in mind that this means your site will only use HTTPS, so make sure it works! (source).
here is another an good written guide for you.
-
Hey there,
You absolutely do need to. One of the biggest mistakes people make is not migrating their disavow file when they switch domains/encryptions.
Sean
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
-
Client wants to repackage in-depth content as PowerPoint files and embed on site. SEO implications?
Hi, I've a client who is planning to build out "courses" for their site. Their ultimate goal is to have videos (which will have transcriptions) but since the videos are not yet ready they want to launch with the content in PowerPoint format instead. Thing is, the pages they have now are really good content/in-depth. In short it seems videos are Phase 2, so their Phase 1 preference is to take all their courses content and put them in PowerPoint slides and add them to their web site. While I understand standalone files like PDFs and PPTs can be indexable, my recollection is that embedded slides are not (like SlideShare). Is that correct? My worry is that by taking this content and reformatting it into PowerPoints will hurt their site instead of helping. Any insight is appreciated!
Technical SEO | | CR-SEO0 -
One simply question about disavow tool
Hi Guys, my website is under a negative seo attack. One simply question about disavow tools. Everyday I have to upload a file with the new bad backlinks (domains). The fact is that when I try to upload a new disavow report the tool continue to show me the file of the day before and If I upload the new file it replace the old one. So.... what I have to do? 1. Upload a new file with the backlink domain of the day that replace the old one
Technical SEO | | Italianseolover
2. Or upload a new file with the old backlinks plus the new one? Thank you very much.0 -
I have a blog on a sub domain, would you move it to the rood domain in a directory?
I have a blog that preforms fairly well on a sub domain, but after reading a post that Rand made to the Q & A I am thinking about moving it to the main domain in a sub directory. What are your thoughts on this? Here are some stats on it. The blog currently gets about 5 x the traffic of the main domain. The domain is older, 2008 creation date. They pretty much register for the same keywords.
Technical SEO | | LesleyPaone0 -
Looking for a tool that will display the contents of the htaccess file
I am looking for an online tool that will display the contents of the htaccess file. i came across a tool a month ago, but I can not recall the name of the tool. Thanks
Technical SEO | | irvingw0 -
Can the Hosting location of image files have a negative effect if on the developers own media server rather than on client site server ?
Hi Can the Hosting location of image files have a negative effect if on the developers own media server as opposed to on the actual websites server ? In the case i'm looking at the image files are hosted on a totally separate server (a media subdomain of the developers site server) from the subject sites dedicated server. Will engines still attribute the properties of files hosted in this manner to the main website (such as file name or should they really be on the subject sites server own media folder ? Cheers Dan
Technical SEO | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
Robots.txt file
How do i get Google to stop indexing my old pages and start indexing my new pages even months down the line? Do i need to install a Robots.txt file on each page?
Technical SEO | | gimes0 -
Properly Moving Blog from Index to its Own Page
Right now I have a website that is exclusively a blog. I want to create pages outside of the blog and move the blog to a page other than the index file e.g.) from domain.com to domain.com/blog I will have the blog post pages stay in the root directory. e.g.) domain.com/blog-post Any suggestions how to properly tell SE's and other websites that the blog has moved?
Technical SEO | | Bartell0 -
How long does it take for customized Google Site Search to show results from pdf files?
The site in question is http://www.ejmh.eu I am pretty unsatisfied with the results I am getting from the Site Search provided by Google. We have over 160 pdf files in this subfolder: http://www.ejmh.eu/mellekletek The files are the digital versions of articles. When I search for content in those pdf files, Google does not show results. It does show results from older pages, dating back 1-2 years but it is certainly not showing anything from pdf files that I have just put up 3 weeks ago. My questions: If I place a Google Search on a site, does it not automatically display results from ALL the content in the root domain? Is there any correlation between how the Site Search is indexing the files and how Google is indexing the urls in general? Should I just wait and see whether site search performance improves or should I switch to another Search software like Zoom Search? It is vital to have a proper, high-quality search functioning on that site in the very near future. What are your experiences? Any tips are greatly appreciated.
Technical SEO | | Lauroca0