Huge Search Traffic Drop After Switching to HTTPS - No Recovery After Couple of Months
-
Hi
In November, we have switched our website (https://www.insidermonkey.com) from HTTP to HTTPS. Initially, we noticed slight search traffic loss but later discovered it might be due to HTTPS switch. A month later we added the https version at search console, and then saw an immediate huge drop (about 25-30%).
We discovered the problem might be due to poor redirection and noticed our redirects were 302s instead of 301s. To fix the problem, we implemented the 301 redirects and submitted the sitemap containing links to the old site at the new search console property (https). We've gone through points listed on the page below:
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6073543
- We fixed the redirects to 301
- Double-checked the sitemaps
- Made sure we had a properly installed SSL certificate (Now, we get A+ from https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=www.insidermonkey.com)
- Made sure we have no mixed-content errors (we don't have any issues at search console.)
We only avoided implementing HSTS, in case we might want to switch back to HTTP.
We had a small improvement in the following month, but our traffic did not fully recover. We wanted to test for the possibility to switch back HTTP by switching only 2 articles in our CMS to HTTP. Our traffic got worse, not only for those but for the whole site. Then we switched back those 2 articles to HTTPS again and implemented HSTS.It seems our search traffic getting worse day by day with no sign of improving.
In the link below you can find the screenshot of our weekly search traffic between 1 October - 1 March. We are down from 500K weekly visitors to mere 167K last week.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Y1TQbj_YtGG4NhLORbEWbvITUkGKUa0G
Any ideas or suggestions? We are willing to get professional help as well. What is the way to find a proper consultant for such problem with relevant experience?
-
Hi etakgoz,
That's a huge drop. I've actually seen a similar drop in traffic before in the past, specifically due to a site redirection issue and also Google Penguin penalties. What caused a mis-diagnosis for me in the past was that our site redirection happened at almost the same time as Google core algorithm changes during the same period.
Have you taken a look at the algorithm change timelines to see if it's possibly an external factor that caused the drop in traffic?
Other than that, did you have any tracking tools or software similar to Moz that you were using to keep track of site issues or the backlink profile? The decrease in traffic is pretty severe and there could be a multitude of issues possibly causing this. Was there a similar decrease in search rankings along the same period of time as well?
Sorry for the questions, but it'll really help if you could provide more details for further diagnosis.
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
-
HTTP vs HTTPS duplication where HTTPS is non-existing
Hey Guys, **My site is **http://www.citymetrocarpetcleaning.com.au/ Goal: I am checking if there is an HTTPS version of my site (duplication issue) What I did: 1. I went to Screaming Frog and run https://www.citymetrocarpetcleaning.com.au/. The result is that it is 200 OK (the HTTPS version exists - possible duplication) 2. Next, I opened a browser and manually replace HTTP with HTTPS, the result is "Image 1" which doesn't indicate a duplication. But if we go deeper in Advanced > Proceed to www.citymetrocarpetcleaning.com.au (unsafe) "Image 2", it displays the content (Image 3). Question: 1. Is there an HTTP vs HTTPs duplication here? 2. Do I need to implement 301 redirection/canonical tags on HTTPS pointing to HTTP to solve duplication? Please help! Cheers! uIgJv DsNrA El7aI
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | gamajunova0 -
From http to https
Hi Guys, I have mixed http and https content on my ecommerce store. My server people is telling me force all to https as it is better for ssl certificate. All versions of the site are declared on search console. Can forcing https and not having more mixed content impact my site badly ? Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kepass0 -
How to increase traffic?
This may seem a bit of a broad question but grateful for all knowledgeable input! There are many things to focus on when looking at organic SEO, but where should I be spending the most time/effort in order to increase traffic.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoman100 -
How do we better optimize a site to show the correct domain in organic search results for the location the user is searching in?
For example, chicago-company.com has the same content as springfield-company.com and I am searching for a general non-brand term (i.e. utility bill pay) and am located in Chicago. How can we optimize the chicago-company.com to ensure that chicago's site results are in top positions over springfields site?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | aelite1 -
Site re-design, full site domain A/B test, will we drop in rankings while leaking traffic
We are re-launching a client site that does very well in Google. The new site is on a www2 domain which we are going to send a controlled amount of traffic to, 10%, 25%, 50%, 75% to 100% over a 5 week period. This will lead to a reduction in traffic to the original domain. As I don't want to launch a competing domain the www2 site will not be indexed until 100% is reached. If Google sees the traffic numbers reducing over this period will we drop? This is the only part I am unsure of as the urls and site structure are the same apart from some new lower level pages which we will introduce in a controlled manner later? Any thoughts or experience of this type of re-launch would be much appreciated. Thanks Pete
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | leshonk0 -
Breadcrumbs showing up in every snippet in search
Ok I created breadcrumbs on my site long ago. They popup every time which what i'm concerned about. I wanted them to pop up for searches that lead to my homepage, but the breadcrumbs pop up for every product and every page on my site. My question is does this hurt searches for the link part of it. As you know search engines check title link and descriptions. Will my link not be counted in or is the breadcrumb purely cosmetic. Just want to know if i'm limiting my rank. Here's a product that should show its own breadcrumb type "Bia Brazil BT3341 BKS-Sexy" in google to see example. I should be number one under ads My code that creates breadcrumbs is as follows: Tops Shorts Best Fit By Brazil Capris Bia Brazil Sexy Leggings Sexy Workout Clothes 15% OFF I REMOVED CODE FROM WEBSITE FOR NOW UNTIL I FIGURE OUT. HOPEFULLY SOMEONE ANSWERS BEFORE search results change thx.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | realmccoy1010 -
Http to https conversion - what were your experiences?
Background: Our devs have been talking about changing some of our websites so that all pages are https vs just those that are a part of our logins and shopping carts. From what I have read things that need to be done as a part of this are make sure that https pages will allow caching setup new site in GWT put 301 redirects in place update all internal links, social profiles etc everywhere you can to https URLs can server handle the extra load so no impact on site speed There is an old MCutts video that says essentially, "works for Pay Pal" and "you can try it, but test it on a smaller site first" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeFo4ytOk8M The comments below the video are all stories about loss in rank and traffic with some coming back. Not sure if these folks did the move correctly, but still, you never know. Question: Have any of you done a technically "correct" move of an entire site from http to https using the suggestions above? What was your experience? Any gotchas? Just to be clear, I am not talking about setting up a site from scratch, but wanted to know impact on an established site. Thx
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CleverPhD1 -
How to get traffic from a particular Geographical region?
Our company is based out of India and has a web site with .in domain ; however our target customers are from North America and Australia.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TPS2013
The problem is we get as high as 70% of organic traffic from India.
This 70% traffic from India has little use to us. Possibly because we have ”.in “ domain the Google local search is active.
How to reverse this situation; I mean we are looking for more traffic from across the globe except India.
Any suggestions ? P.S. Changing domain from .in to .com is not an option as its the part of our brand advertised for last 7 years1