Can converting a site to HTTPS impact ranking?
-
We have a client with a very large site that would like to put a login on each page; however, that would require the entire site be put behind a secure connection (changing http:// to https:// on every page). They rank for a ton of keywords and rank well. Would the change impact their rankings at all? Could it possibly help them?
-
Hi Cyrus,
No - all the content will still be visible. We just want to migrate to https. Thanks for the advice!
-
Not at all, Martin! They just didn't answer the original question of whether or not there would be an impact.
-
Thanks for adding that Cyrus... I have to say I was assuming Douglas wasn't hiding the actual content, but that was an assumption, so I'm glad you checked.
-
Hi Douglas,
Martin has some good points on how to implement the migration to https, but I want to make sure that you're only adding a login on each page, and not putting your content behind the login. You're content is visible even if a user is logged out, right?
If it's just a form, then you're okay. You might lose a little link juice via 301 redirects, but in general you'll be fine.
On the other hand, if you require a login to your content, this is a really bad idea.Search robots don't fill out login forms. When they get to one, they stop. There are no more links at this point for them to crawl. This can and does create severe crawling and indexing for websites that employ this technique.
Otherwise, if you follow Martins advice you should come out quite alright. Once you implement the 301s, I might leave the old sitemap in place for awhile (and submit both to the major search engines) so that Google can process the 301s.
Hope this helps. Best of luck with your SEO!
-
Hi Doug,
And I did not presume you could or couldn't do those things, but I didn't word my post in a way that was condescending...explaining things step by step is not always appropriate because I would rather presume knowledge on a forum like SEOmoz than presume ignorance.
So, I hope you were not too offended by my presumption of knowledge.
That being said would you like me to explain what to do to achieve the above points? I am more than happy to do so, by the way.
- On the volume of links - if it is a large-scale issue then another solution would be to have a non-SSL version home page, but on login they are taken to a different SSL 'member welcome' or 'dashboard' sort of page. That way you can retain the link value to the non-SSL version while providing the necessary security over the logged-in functionality.
- On the question of non-SSL links to SSL page ... any extra 'diversion' required between a link and its target has, in my experience, the propensity to reduce that link's effectiveness. even the effects of 301's diminish over time because the presumption is that the page you are 301-ing to is the correct 'new' one and is therefore more relevant, which is why I initially suggested getting links 'fixed'. As your initial post did not suggest the scale of links I could not have replied in a more precise way.
So I do suggest you consider implementing the first bullet point above as a good compromise and will retain the value of your links but permits the SSL implementation as well.
Let me know if I can help further or if you need more things explaining so that you know how to go about doing some of the things suggested. Thanks.
-
Hmmm... of course if I could do all of those things, I probably wouldn't have asked the question.
Sarcasm aside, there are tens of thousands of links external to the site, many of them on very high authority sites that will not update their links.
Are you saying that a non-SSL link to an SSL page will actually diminish the backlink's weight?
Doug
-
Right, one of our clients fits this bill exactly. So here goes:-
- Do a 301 redirect of all impacted URLs in the .htaccess or web.config file (depending on the type of server)
- Ensure the sitemap.xml contains the HTTPS versions only.
- Find out who's linking to your pages and using the HTTP and ask them to update the link to https
- Do a double check of all internal links (which should have relative paths anyway) and make sure none refer to HTTP
If you do it well it shouldn't negatively impact it at all. Positive? Well, depends on the competition I suppose, having a HTTPS shows care for your community and providing a secure service is a good thing, but I wouldn't expect much of a nudge based on this alone.
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
-
A single page from site not ranking
Hello, We have a new site launched in March, that is ranking well in search for all of the pages, except one and we don't know why. This page it is optimised exactly the same way like the others, but still doesn't rank in Google. We have verified robots.txt for noffollow, noindex tags, we have verified if it was penalized by Google, but still didn't find nothing. Initially we had another site and was on the topic of this page, but we have redirected it to the new one. In case this old site was anytime in the past penalized by Google, could it be possible that the new page be influenced by this? Also, we have another site that ranks on the first position, that targets the same keywords like the page that does not rank. It was the first site we launched, so it is pretty much old, but we do not have duplicate content on them. Maybe Google doesn't like the fact that both target the same keywords and chooses to display only the old site? Please help us if you have any ideas or have been through such thing. Thank you!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | daniela.pirlogea0 -
Need references to a company that can transition our 1000 page website from Http to Https without breaking our SEO backlinks and site structure
Hi Ya'll I'm looking for a company or independent who can transition our website from http to https. I want to make sure they know what they're doing with a Wordpress website. More importantly, i want to make sure they don't break any seo juice from external sources while internally nothing gets broken. Anyone have any good recommendations? You can reply back or DM me. Best, Shawn
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Shawn1240 -
My site shows 503 error to Google bot, but can see the site fine. Not indexing in Google. Help
Hi, This site is not indexed on Google at all. http://www.thethreehorseshoespub.co.uk Looking into it, it seems to be giving a 503 error to the google bot. I can see the site I have checked source code Checked robots Did have a sitemap param. but removed it for testing GWMT is showing 'unreachable' if I submit a site map or fetch Any ideas on how to remove this error? Many thanks in advance
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SolveWebMedia0 -
Unnatural links to your site—impacts links
I got message in my Google webmaster tool: Unnatural links to your site—impacts links Does anyone knows the difference between "Unnatural links to your site—impacts links" and "Unnatural links to your site" Thank you Sina
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SinaKashani0 -
Is it Wortwhile to have a HTML site map for a Large Site
We are a large, enterprise site with many pages (some on our CMS and some old pages that exist outside our CMS). Every month we submit various an XML site map. Some pages on our site can no longer be found via following links from one page to another (orphan pages). Some of those pages are important and some not. Is it worth our while to create a HTML site map? Does any one have any recent stats or blog posts to share, showing how a HTML site map may have benefited a large site. Many thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CeeC-Blogger0 -
Why does this site rank above us?
We own www.discountbannerprinting.co.uk and over the last 8 months have built some decent guest post, charity and customer links but still we seem to be beaten on good words such as banners, banner, vinyl banner, pvc banner etc by this website www-signfirm.com we just cannot figure out how this is happening and would be very grateful if someone with great wisdom could give us an in-site into why this is happening and we would be very grateful..
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BobAnderson0 -
Need help on SEO for my site. Can't figure out what is wrong.
My site, findyogi.com, isn't ranking well in google SERPs. For some good content and matching keyword, my pages are ranking 200+ whereas other sites that have similar or lower authority are ranking in top 10. I must be doing something fundamentally wrong but can't seem to figure out what. I am not looking at ranking 1 on google right now but my pages don't appear even on page 2-4. Sample Keyword- "Samsung galaxy s4 price in india" . Matching page - www.findyogi.com/mobiles/samsung/samsung-galaxy-s4-b94a37/price Please help.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | namansr0 -
Why does this site rank on the 1st page
i dont mean to be calling any site out im just scratching my head on this one.- I can't see any signal that would make it worthy of ranking on the first page for keyword loose diamonds. page http://www.jewelryexchange.com/DiamondResults.aspx Am i missing something all tools seem to say the site isn't worthy- All help appreciated
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DavidKonigsberg0