HTTP to HTTPS Transition, Large Drop in Search Traffic
-
My URL is: https://www.seattlecoffeegear.comWe implemented https across the site on Friday. Saturday and Sunday search traffic was normal/slightly higher than normal (in analytics) and slightly down in GWT. Today, it has dropped significantly in both, to about half of normal search traffic. From everything we can see, we implemented this correctly.
- 301 redirected all http requests to https (and yes, they go to the correct page and not to the homepage )
- Rewrote hardcoded internal links
- Registered/submitted sitemaps from https in Bing and GWT
- Used fetch and render to ensure Google could reach the site and also was redirected appropriately from http to https versions
- Ensured robots.txt does not block https or secure
We also use a CDN (though I don't think that impacts anything) and have had no customer issues with accessing or using the website since the transition.Is there anything else I might be missing that could correlate to a drop in search impressions or is this just a waiting game of a few days to let Google sort through the change we've made and reindex everything (it dropped to 0 indexed for a day and is now up to 1744 of our 2180 pages indexed)?Thank you so much for any input!Kaylie
-
Thank you for the reminder! I believe these have all been switched over, but I'll give it another look to be sure!
Kaylie
-
Important think to remember if you are running AdWords to your site is to make sure that your AdWords also point to the https url.
Also when you create new AdWords add pay attention, as default setting is http.
-
Hmmm, I don't appear to have that icon. Perhaps because sampling is not occurring on my report?
I actually felt that the transition went really well, which is why I was surprised by the data. I have a feeling, however, that I indeed just need to give it a few more days and keep checking the traffic/search information.
I'll keep you posted on how things pan out over the next week or so!
-
For Webmaster Tools, you are only getting partial data from the 27th right now. I'd monitor WT for the first full week post switch and compare your data then.
Also, for Google Analytics, that 4% difference may be due to having only partial data from today. So you may need to wait a bit longer for a more accurate comparison there. That said, 4% difference in traffic isn't alarming for the amount of time you're digging into. You're probably overly sensitive after the switch. I'm sure I'd be.
Once thing you can do in GA is ask for higher precision on the reporting. Click the weird icon next to the graduation cap in the top right and slide the toggle under "Control the number of sessions used to calculate this report" toward Higher Precision.
I'm really interested in your experience because we're mapping out a move to https, too.
-
Thanks for the response!
Sorry about the timeout error. Not sure what happened there either. I have been unable to replicate it.
You were partially right about the dates. So now I am looking at the same time table for Analytics and GWT (21-27) and I see a huge "drop" on the 27th in GWT. However, if I extend GA through today, I see a minor drop on Friday the 26th and then it bumps back up to normal levels. Is there a chance that maybe GWT is reporting search/clicks from part way through the 27th rather than the full day of data, creating a false sense of alarm?
I wanted to see a larger set of data that might tell a more complete story. So, looking in GA, I only see a change of 5% in traffic when comparing the 23rd-29th with the 16th-22nd. That is a 4% decrease in Google organic, but I don't feel like these numbers are the cause for alarm that GWT graphs initially indicate. Thoughts?
Thanks for your input!
Kaylie
-
I get a 504 error when I first tried to load your site (https). Then I loaded the http version, but was redirected to the HTTPS version after some time. Not sure what's going on there. I could not repeat the error.
Also, Webmaster Tools data is about two days delayed. Are you sure you're comparing the same days in both applications? (Not uncommon mistake for me to have made.)
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
-
Has anyone else seen a large drop in Domain Authority this week?
A site of ours and its competitors have all seen pretty big drops in domain authority over the past week or so. Just wondering whether this could be something to do with a change in how DA is measured or whether its our backlink profile that is the problem. Any feedback would be much appreciated!
Technical SEO | | SEO_Jellyfish0 -
Web Page Dropped Out of Google?
One of our web pages seems to have completely dropped out of Google after featuring on page 1 for a number of years. It can't be a site wide issue as all other web pages are performing as normal. The page is http://www.contractormoney.com/income-protection/ and the key phrase it was performing well for was 'contractor income protection'. Any ideas??
Technical SEO | | Pete40 -
Google Site Search
I'm considering to implement google site search bar into my site.
Technical SEO | | JonsonSwartz
I think I probably choose the version without the ads (I'll pay for it). does anyone use Google Site Search and can tell if it's a good thing? does it affects in any way on seo? thank you0 -
Onsite Search Engine
Hi, We have a search engine on our website. Whenever a user searches on our site it goes to subdomain - search.mysite.com. This domain is not hosted by us, is this negatively affecting our SEO? Does google interpret this as a bounce since a user is technically leaving our site to search for something? Are there any other ramifications this would have on our site? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | EcomLkwd1 -
Rankings drop after Panda
Hi All, My site dropped completely out of the SERPS on September 27th. I've tried everything I know to do (re-wrote all content, disavow links tool, filed DCMA complaints, de-optimized on-page content, made anchor text less aggressive, etc). Can you all please take a look at www.doctorloanusa.com and let me know what you think the problem is and how much you'd charge to help? Keywords used to be: doctor loans, physician loans. I ranked 2 or 3 for those keywords consistently for over 4 years. I know I need more content, but I feel like it's a waste of time creating it. If a thin site was the issue, wouldn't I at least rank SOMEWHERE in the 1000 results? Thanks for your consideration. At my wits end.
Technical SEO | | Cary_Forest0 -
Sudden MozRank drop?
My site's MozRank dropped abruptly from 3.5 to 3 from September to October. MozRank had been steadily climbing until then and there were no changes made to the site in that time period. What may have happened?
Technical SEO | | mlwilmore0 -
Disallowing https URLs
It there a problem disallowing all https URLs to be indexed in order to avoid duplication? This is the article recommending this practice - http://blog.leonardchallis.com/seo/serve-a-different-robots-txt-for-https/ Thanks!
Technical SEO | | theLotter0 -
Expired traffic and 301 value
Hi Folks, Here is our situation we have an old brand domain www.asia-hotels.com >> that was redirecting to>>www.asiahotels.com By mistake, we let that domain expired and only noticed the drop a month later We lost all our pages and this for several weeks Not sure of the exact date but approximately around 24th of December, what a merry Xmas! 😞 Since then we have repurchased the domain, Put back all the pages as they were and re-instated all the 301 redirect as they were. Since that date we haven't seen any uplift in our visits or visibility score. Did we do something wrong with our 301 redirect? I know for sure we used ISAPI rewrite mod for the non www. domain although I am not entirely sure how the www. version has been handled. Is there something we should do at a DNS level to flag the site is back? Should we presetn a reconsideration request? Any help would be greatly welcomed. Thanks for your help. Cheers, Freddy More info I placed a bit more info and the visits graph on my blog: http://www.inmarketingwetrust.com.au/seo-effect-of-domain-expiry-on-301-redirects/ I am not sure if this is due to the fact that some information is cached but when i looked at the site on opensiteexplorer I found that the data is still showing as non redirected sites: http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/asia-hotels.com/www.asia-hotels.com/a!comparison effect-of-301-redirect-expired-on-SERP-visibility-300x204.jpg
Technical SEO | | Gus_Martin0