HTTPS & Redirects

[BeckyKey]

Hi

We're moving to https imminently & I wondered if anyone has advice on redirects.

Obviously we'll be redirecting all http versions to https - but should I be checking how many redirects are in each chain and amending accordingly?

If there's 4-5 in a chain, remove the middle unnecessary URLS ?

Advice please

[Ampweb]

Hi, We are on Magento and moving to https for all URLS soon as well. We have just had them on customer pages, checkout and admin but time to move on.
Interesting to read about those database redirects also. We have thousands in place over years as we've tidied up the catalogue and they get automatically created.

A few years back I deleted them on a site upgrade and we seemed to take a knock in rankings... but it could have been the new site source code contributing to this also. Things have settled and we have good seo ... but ive concerns over changing to full https...eekkk.

What htaccess codes did you use to redirect all existing http urls to the https versions?
Was it just something like?

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]

[BeckyKey]

The https migration will have the same URLS but I'm trying to tidy up the redirects we currently have

So each time a title is updated on the site, a new redirect is added to the database but the others are not removed.

Shall I just delete from the database? I just want to make sure I'm not deleting those old URLs with authority in the chain

[GastonRiera]

Delete those one that do not have content.

Keep in mind that https migration is intended to hace almost the same URLs, only changing http for https.
Cant imagine why having those extra URLs in the middle of the chain.

Is there something that Im missing?

[BeckyKey]

I think each time they get a redirect request they just update all the existing URLs in the file.

My question is which ones do I delete? I need to update the first URL & the last & remove the middle but from the file I can't determine which URL was first in the chain...

[GastonRiera]

Try to convince your dev team that those redirects are not needed. 
If those middle pages dont exist, why the redirect?

I'd settle in max 2 hops, that is 2 redirects. This is just my maximum.
The best for google: 1 redirect.
Max tolerated by google: 4-5.

[BeckyKey]

Hi

Yes, I am just trying to work out how our dev team manage the redirects.

I'm not sure whether they actually go through a redirect chain.. this is an example of the data pulled from the redirect export:

• sloping-top-for-ekwo-industrial-1-tier-lockers redirect > sloping-top-for-manutan-industrial-lockers

• sloping-top-for-industrial-1-tier-lockers redirect > sloping-top-for-manutan-industrial-lockers

• sloping-top-for-industrial-lockers redirect > sloping-top-for-manutan-industrial-lockers

[GastonRiera]

Hello Becky!

If possible, lower down the number of redirects even though Google understands well up to 4-5 hops. Matt Cutts said it in these videos:
Can too many redirects from a single URL have a negative effect on crawling? Is there a limit to how many 301 (Permanent) redirects I can do on a site?

Best Luck.
GR.