Dealing with non-canonical http vs https?
-
We're working on a complete rebuild of a client's site. The existing version of the site is in WordPress and I've noticed that the site is accessible via http and https. The new version of the site will have mostly or entirely different URLs.
It seems that both http and https versions of a page will resolve, but all of the rel-canonical tags I've seen point to the https version.
Sometimes image tags and stylesheets are https, sometimes they aren't.
There are both http and https pages in Google's index.
Having looked at other community posts about http/https, I've gathered the following:
- http/https is like two different domains.
- http and https versions need to be verified in Google Webmaster Tools separately. Set up the preferred domain properly.
- Rel-canonicals and internal links should have matching protocols.
My thought is that we will do a .htaccess that redirects old URLs regardless of the protocol to new pages at one protocol. I would probably let the .css and image files from the current site 404.
When we develop and launch the new site, does it make sense for everything to be forced to https? Are there any particular SEO issues that I should be aware of for a scenario like this?
Thanks!
-
Thank you Michael.
-
You're on the right track. Force it all to https, and keep the rel=canonical pointing to https versions.
Check out this thread of questions to Google's John Mueller on this topic:
Make sure you test very thoroughly before launching the https-only version: you'll run into issues with things like images, CSS, Jscript referenced via http instead of relative or protocol-free referencing. Same goes for your internal links: you don't want to throw away a ton of link juice (even if only 5% at a time) because of 301 redirects from http to https that you could have fixed :-).
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
-
Would it be better to Start Over vs doing a Website Migration?
Hey guys /gals I have a question please. I have a computer repair business that does extremely well in search and is on the front page of google for anything computer repair related. However, I am currently re-branding my company and have completely redesigned every aspect of the UI and the SEO Site structure as well as the fact that I have completely written vastly different content and different title tag lines and meta descriptions for each page. So basically when doing a migration we know that we want to keep our content, titles, headlines and meta descriptions the same as to not lose our page rank. Seeing that I have completely went against the grain in all directions on a much needed company re-branding and everything is completely different from the old site is it even worthwhile 301 redirecting my old urls to the new ones that would (best) correspond with the new? In the plainest English, would I do better at Ranking the New Website QUICKER without doing 301 redirects from the OLD to the NEW? In an EXTREME instance like what I have done, would the Domain Migration IMPEDED me ranking the new site seeing how nothing is the same? I have build a Rock solid SILO Site Architecture on the New site which is WordPress using the Thesis Framework and the old domain is built on JOOMLA 1.5 Thank fellas Marshall
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MarshallThompson0 -
HTTPS in Rel Canonical
Hi, Should I, or do I need to, use HTTPS (note the "S") in my canonical tags? Thanks Andrew
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Studio330 -
Canonical tag
Hi all, I have an ecommerce client and on the pages they have a drop down so customers can view via price, list etc. Natrurally I want a canonical tag on these pages, here's the question. as they have different pages of products, the canonical tag on http://www.thegreatgiftcompany.com/occassion/christmas#items-/occassion/christmas/page=7/?sort=price_asc,searchterm=,layout=grid,page=1 is to http://www.thegreatgiftcompany.com/occassion/christmas#items-/occassion/christmas/page=7. now, because the page=7 is a duplicate of the main page, shouldn't the canonical just be to the main page rather than page=7? Even when there is a canonical tag on the /Christmas/page=7 to the /Christmas page? hope that makes sense to everyone!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | KarlBantleman0 -
Canonical referencing and aspx
The following pages of my website all end up at the same place:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | IPROdigital
http://example.com/seo/Default.aspx
http://example.com/SEO/
http://example.com/seo
http://example.com/sEo
http://example.com/SeO but we have a really messy URL structure throughout the website. I would like to have a neat URL structure, including for offline marketing so customers can easily memorize or even guess the URL. I'm thinking of duplicating the pages and canonical referencing the original ones with the messy URLs instead of a 301 redirect (done for each individual page of course), because the latter will likely result in a traffic drop. We've got tens of thousands of URLs; some active and some inactive. Bearing in mind that thousands of links already point in to the site and even a small percentage drop in traffic would be a serious problem given low industry margins and high marketing spend, I'd love to hear opinions of people who have encountered this issue and found it problematic or successful. @randfish to the rescue. I hope.0 -
REL canonicals not fixing duplicate issue
I have a ton of querystrings in one of the apps on my site as well as pagination - both of which caused a lot of Duplicate errors on my site. I added rel canonicals as a php condition so every time a specific string (which only exists in these pages) occurs. The rel canonical notification shows up in my campaign now, but all of the duplicate errors are still there. Did I do it right and just need to ignore the duplicate errors? Is there further action to be taken? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Ocularis0 -
Transactional vs Informative Search
I have a page that id ranking quiet good (Page1) for the plural of a Keyword but it is just ranking on Page 3 for the Singular Keyword. For more then one Year I am working on Onpage and Offpage optimization to improve ranking for the singular term, without success. Google is treating the two terms almost the same, when you search for term one also term 2 is marked in bold and the results are very similar. The big difference between both terms is in my opinion that one is more for informational search the other one is more for transactional search. Now i would be curious to know which factors could Google use to understand weather a search and a website is more transactional or informative? Apart of mentioning: Buy now, Shop, Buy now, Shop, Special offer etc. Any Ideas?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SimCaffe0 -
Places ranking for a non-locational phrase?
http://www.google.co.uk/search?ie=UTF-8&q=coach+hire&pws=0&gl=GB The link above takes you to a SERP for a general phrase with no hint of locations involved (Coach Hire). However oddly enough there is a single google places listing that has pooped up at #4. Liverpool Minibus Coach hire <cite>www.localcoachhireuk.co.uk/</cite> Now if this was "Coach Hire London" I would expect places, and indeed there is a list of places. But how do you get a places listing ranking for a phrase without a place name? Also of interest is the fact that this website doesn't even exist! It is a 301 redirect to another site. Google seems to be picking up the 301 since it shows the redirected site in the page snapshot and has no pages indexed for this domain. So an un-indexed site with a 301 redirect is #4 for the top phrase in this industry. I have no doubt that this will only be a temporary thing but it would be interesting to know how it was possible.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PPCnSEO0 -
Will the Canonical tag fix this issue?
I recently joined promoz and I've been busy working through the issues raised brought to light during the crawls of our Magento site, www.unitedbmwonline.com. One of many issues were the 10,000+ Duplicate Page Titles which I believe are the result of not using Canonical tags when setting up the store. This is now corrected and hopefully I'll see a significant drop in this value after this next crawl. Am I correct in this assumption? Cheers, Steve
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SteveMaguire0