Once on https should Moz still be picking up errors on http
-
Hello,
Should Moz be picking up http errors still if the sites on https? Or has the https not been done properly? I'm getting duplicate errors amoung other things.
Cheers,
Ruth
-
Wow - sorry this question slipped past, Ruth.
As long as the proper HTTP redirect has been written to HTTPS, there's nothing that needs to be done with canonical tags.
The beauty of 301-redirects is that they are server directives - once in place, its no longer even possible to reach the non-HTTPS URLs. The HTTPS URLs should of course still keep their own self-referential canonical tags, but that's handled automatically in most CMSs (Content Management Systems like WordPress.)
Hope that covers what you were asking?
Paul
-
Hi Ruth,
I am more than happy to help. Please have a look at these resources if you believe the migration has not been done correctly.
Please have a look at these resources I think they will be immensely helpful. Please remember the Google doc referenced in number one is available in line 3 as well as In the instructions anchor text on line 2.
- https://www.aleydasolis.com/en/search-engine-optimization/http-https-migration-checklist-google-docs/
- To easily make a copy, add to your own Drive, download or print, go to the Google Docs, then choose “File” and select your preferred option: (Or use link below)
- https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1XB26X_wFoBBlQEqecj7HB79hQ7DTLIPo97SS5irwsK8/edit?usp=sharing
Please let me know if I can be of any help,
Thomas
-
Thanks, Thomas will have a look at those.
-
Hi Ruth,
Paul brought up a very good point.
If using Apache and it sounds like you are you can force the HTTP to HTTPS redirect using
<ifmodule mod_rewrite.c="">RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} !^443$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]</ifmodule>See this for more https://www.aleydasolis.com/htaccess-redirects-generator/https-vs-http/
301 Redirects are in place verify that by using a tool like this one. you can drop all the URLs you want to check in here. https://httpstatus.io/
Then make sure any HTTP is a 301 and any HTTPS is a 200
Then run a search and replace
http://mydomain.com
tohttps://mydomain.com
http://www.mydomain.com
tohttps://www.mydomain.com
If you are running a WordPress website this is a very effective plug-in ( and free if you type the name into wordpress.org's plugin repo)
https://bettersearchreplace.com/ or https://interconnectit.com/products/search-and-replace-for-wordpress-databases/
Your canonical tags (unless very good reason like third-party content) should be self-referencing meaning add canonical's to the https:// urls not the http:// URLs like below. A good example is what you see below
Moz will tell you as will https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/redirect-checker/ & https://deepcrawl.com will easily find any of the problems. some references below for rel-canonical tags
https://moz.com/blog/rel-canonical
https://yoast.com/rel-canonical/
Last but not least here is a wonderful tutorial that goes over migrating from http to https
https://www.keycdn.com/blog/http-to-https/
I hope this was of help,
Tom
-
Hi Paul,
Yes thank you, that's brilliant and confirms what I've been thinking - that the https hasn't been done properly as they're not redirecting when going to the http version. I thought the client had at the htaccess so will look into that.
If the redirects are done properly do I need to add canonical tags or are the redirects enough? Just want to make sure I'm covering all bases.
Thanks so much for your advice.
Cheers,
Ruth
-
You need to ensure that the HTTP version of the site's URLs are no longer reachable, Ruth. That means adding a 301-redirect to force all URLs to their HTTPS versions. This is the most likely cause of your issue
To test, simply go to a page URL in the browser address bar and remove the s from the HTTPS and hit enter. Watch what happens. If the address bar shows the automatic change back to the HTTPS version of the URL, you're good. If it doesn't, you'll need to add the redirect.
You should also ensure that all the internal links within the site have been rewritten to use the HTTPS version of the URLs - like menus, sidebars, widgets, and in-content links to other pages.
Hope that helps?
Paul
-
Thanks, Thomas. The https urls are in place but I was concerned that if the http urls are showing up still that the move to https hasn't been done properly.
-
Do a search & replace on your site then recheck it.
search for HTTP url's & replace with https URL's
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
-
Migrating Http Site to Https Version
Hello, This coming weekend we will be changing our http sites to https versions. I have a very quick question regarding Google Search Console. Because the migration is happening over a weekend, we want to get as much as possible setup beforehand. Is there any risk to adding the new properties to the search console without the sites being live yet? I want to deliver the Search Console verify files to our IT team in advance for them to add to the site, and then once I get the okay that the migration went successfully, I would go into the Search Console and click on the Verify button to get the sites verified and of course, then fetch as Google to help speed up indexing a bit and ensure there are no errors. Any insight on this would be greatly appreciated! Amiee
Technical SEO | | Amiee0 -
Soft 404 errors
Hello Everyone, I recently removed some pages and made a custom 404 page by putting "ErrorDocument 404 http://www.site.com/404.htm" in the htaccess file but WMT now reports soft 404 errors, how do I do this properly? Thanks
Technical SEO | | jwdl0 -
Seomoz pages error
Hi
Technical SEO | | looktouchfeel
I have a problem with seomoz, it is saying my website http://www.clearviewtraffic.com has page errors on 19,680 pages. Most of the errors are for duplicate page titles. The website itself doesn't even have 100 pages. Does anyone know how I can fix this? Thanks Luke0 -
Page not indexed but still has a PageRank, how?
http://www.optiproerp.com/products.aspx page is not indexed in Google but still has a PageRank of 1. How? Regards
Technical SEO | | IM_Learner0 -
404 Error
Hello, Seomoz flagged a url as having a 404 client error. The reason the link doesn't return a proper content page is because the url name was changed. What should we do? Will this error disappear when Google indexes our site again? Or is there some way to manually eliminate it? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | OTSEO0 -
404 errors and what to do
Hi, I am fairly new to the whole seo thing and am still getting confused a bit as to what to do to sort things out. I've checked the help pages but I cannot seem to find the issue. I've just signed up so my site is crawled for the first time and coming up with more then a 1000 404 errors. I checked a couple of the links via the report I downloaded and it does indeed show a 404 error but when I check the pages all seems to work fine. I did find one issue where an image if clicked on twice was pointing to an url with 'title= at the end. Now I have tried to get of that but couldn't find anything wrong. I'm a bit lost as to where to start!
Technical SEO | | junglefrog0 -
Duplicate page content errors in SEOmoz
Hi everyone, we just launched this new site and I just ran it through SEOmoz and I got a bunch of duplicate page content errors. Here's one example -- it says these 3 are duplicate content: http://www.alicealan.com/collection/alexa-black-3inch http://www.alicealan.com/collection/alexa-camel-3inch http://www.alicealan.com/collection/alexa-gray-3inch You'll see from the pages that the titles, images and small pieces of the copy are all unique -- but there is some copy that is the same (after all, these are pretty much the same shoe, just a different color). So, why am I getting this error and is there any best way to address? Thanks so much!
Technical SEO | | ketanmv
Ketan0 -
4xx Client Error
I have 2 pages showing as errors in my Crawl Diagnostics, but I have no idea where these pages have come from, they don't exist on my site. I have done a site wide search for them and they don't appear to be referenced are linked to from anywhere on my site, so where is SEomoz pulling this info from? the two links are: http://www.adgenerator.co.uk/acessibility.asp http://www.adgenerator.co.uk/reseller-application.asp The first link has a spelling mistake and the second link should have an "S" on the end of "application"
Technical SEO | | IPIM0