Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Effects of having both http and https on my website
-
You are able to view our website as either http and https on all pages.
For example: You can type "http://mywebsite.com/index.html" and the site will remain as http: as you navigate the site. You can also type "https://mywebsite.com/index.html" and the site will remain as https: as you navigate the site.
My question is....if you can view the entire site using either http or https, is this being seen as duplicate content/pages?
Does the same hold true with "www.mywebsite.com" and "mywebsite.com"?
Thanks!
-
Rexjoec,
It is considered duplicate content and the same holds true for www and non-www. You can 301 forward the non-www to www and use rel=canonical to avoid the duplicate content issue with between http and https.
-
Yes. That is considered duplicate content. You common URLs you should check for include:
- http://domain.com
- https://domain.com
- http://www.domain.com
- https://www.domain.com
- http://domain.com/index.(extension)
- https://domain.com/index.(extension)
- http://www.domain.com/index.(extension)
- https://www.domain.com/index.(extension)
- http://domain.com/default.(extension)
- https://domain.com/default.(extension)
- http://www.domain.com/default.(extension)
- https://www.domain.com/default.(extension)
I might have missed a few more, but those are the ones I usually look for.
You can review this Google Webmaster Tools article on how to fix duplicate content issues by using 301 redirects, selecting a preferred domain in GWT, using the canonical tag, and more.
Typically, not in all cases, you have an http and https issue because you have a secure page on your website that uses relative links instead of absolute. So when you go from http to signin on an https, from that page all links point to https page versions instead of the http which the visitor came in on.
Hope this helps.
Mike
-
If you have everything set up correctly, your users should be re-directed to the https anyway, if you have the SSL certificates and your site is set up properly.
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
-
Spammy page with canonical reference to my website
A potentially spammy website http://www.rofof.com/ has included a rel canonical tag pointing to my website. They've included the tag on thousands of pages on their website. Furthermore http://www.rofof.com/ appears to have backlinks from thousands of other low-value domains For example www.kazamiza.com/vb/kazamiza242122/, along with thousands of other pages on thousands of other domains all link to pages on rofof.com, and the pages they link to on rofof.com are all canonicalized to a page on my site. If Google does respect the canonical tag on rofof.com and treats it as part of my website then the thousands of spammy links that point to rofof.com could be considered as pointing to my website. I'm trying to contact the owner of www.rofof.com hoping to have the canonical tag removed from their website. In the meantime, I've disavowed the www.rofof.com, the site that has canonical tag. Will that have any effect though? Will disavow eliminate the effect of a rel canonical tag on the disavowed domain or does it only affect links on the disavowed website? If it only affects links then should I attempt to disavow all the pages that link to rofof.com? Thanks for reading. I really appreciate any insight you folks can offer.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | brucepomeroy2 -
Website Snippet Update in Search Console?
I have a company that I started working with that has an outdated and inaccurate snippet coming up. See the link below. They changed their name from DK on Pittsburgh Sports to just DK Pittsburgh Sports several years ago, but the snippet is still putting the old info, including outdated and incorrect description. I'm not seeing that title or description anywhere on the site or a schema plugin. How can we get it updated? I have updated titles, etc. for the home page, and done a Fetch to get re-indexed. Does Snippet have a different type of refresh that I can submit or edit? Thanks in advance https://g.co/kgs/qZAnAC
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jeremyskillings0 -
How ot optimise a website for competitive keywords?
Hi guys, I hope to find some good answers to my questions, because here are some of the best SEO's in the world. I'm doing SEO as a hobby for a few years and had some very good results before the latest Google updates. Now I'm not able to rank any website for competitive keywords. The last project I started is this website (man and van hire company targeting London market).
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nasi_bg
The problem is that I can't rank even in Top 100 in Google UK for the main keywords like: "man and van london" , "man and van service london" ,"london man & van"...
The site has over 1k good backlinks (according to Ahrefs), unique content, titles and descriptions but still can't rank well. Am i missing something? Few years back that was more than enough to rank well in Google.
I will be very grateful to hear your suggestions and opinions.0 -
Is .ME domain is effective in SEO ?
I am always listening about TLD. com. org .net but what about the .me domain. Can this will be effective in SEO. Can i able to beat down my competitors, if i choose .me . I also have a .com or other TLD option but if i am making my name than .me is for me but i need your suggestion for the seo purpose. Is there really domain affective in term of SEO.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | pnb5670 -
How important is the optional <priority>tag in an XML sitemap of your website? Can this help search engines understand the hierarchy of a website?</priority>
Can the <priority>tag be used to tell search engines the hierarchy of a site or should it be used to let search engines know which priority to we want pages to be indexed in?</priority>
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mycity4kids0 -
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 -
Redirecting Canonical 301s and Magento Website
I have an issue with a client's website where it has 3700+ pages, but roughly half of them are duplicates. Thankfully, the only difference between the original and the duplictes is the "?print" at the end of each URL (I suppose this is Magento's way of making a printable page version of the same page. I don't know, I didn't build it.) My questions is, how can I get all the pages like this http://www.mycompany.com/blah.html?print to redirect to pages like this... http://www.mycompany.com/blah.html Also, do they NEED to be Canonical, or will a 301 redirect be sufficient. Also, after having done this, if anybody knows, is there a way I can turn that feature off in Magento, because we're expanding our product line, and I don't want to have to keep chasing after these "?print" pages after the fact.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ClifThompson0 -
Blocking HTTP 1.0?
One of my clients believes someone is trying to hack their site. We are seeing the requests with a server protocol or HTTP 1.0 so they want to block 1.0 entirely. Will this cause any problems with search engines or regular, non-spamming visitors?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BryanPhelps-BigLeapWeb0