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.
How does switching to HTTPS effect Google Analytics?
-
We are looking at making our site HTTPS. We have been using the same Google Analytics account for years and I like having the historical data. All of our pages will be the same, we are just going to redirect from the http to https. Does anything need to be done with Google Analytics? What about other addons such as Optimizely, Crazy Egg, or Share this?
-
I'm not a netsec expert or a technical SEO expert, but I'm running SEO for my company and have been looking into this for a while now. The tips I can give you are: add rel="canonical" tags to all the http:// versions of your site pointing to the https:// version. Once you get an SSL certificate, make sure to claim all 4 variations of your URL (http://, http://www., https://, https://www.) in webmaster tools and designate which is canonical (this will just make sure the Googlebot knows which is canonical, you'll still want to add the tag to your site pages). Finally, make sure that if you do decide to switch to HTTPS:// (which I highly recommend - some people, myself included, now instinctively use https:// over http:// and if someone points a link at https:// when you aren't using it, Chrome will display a yellow warning interstitial and a red X over the https:// in the address bar), get an SHA-2 certificate, rather than SHA-1, as Google is sunsetting it in the next year. To the comment on page load speed - Https:// slows page load down, but generally not by a substantial amount (also, there are plenty of other ways to address page load time that can offset the hit, and if you've already done all that, the page load hit won't hurt you, since you're in better shape than everyone else). Also, while Google's incorporation of https:// as a signal so far has not seemed to impact results much, it's a near certainty that, based on Google's current behavior, it will become less of a signal and more of a necessity, and as more websites adopt it, the less the slight page load hit will matter. Websites are essentially required to adopt it sometime in their lifecycle, as growth makes security much more of a concern.
Further reading on SHA-1 and SHA-2:
https://konklone.com/post/why-google-is-hurrying-the-web-to-kill-sha-1
http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com/2014/09/gradually-sunsetting-sha-1.html
-
We know that:
- Site Speed is a Google ranking signal
- https is now a ranking signal also
2a) https slows down a site - Is it worth going https?
-
Yeah Microsoft, for some reason, likes to make things a little more complex than it needs to be. Here are a couple of links I found that might help:
http://www.iis.net/configreference/system.webserver/httpredirect
http://forums.iis.net/t/1190228.aspx?Specific+url+301+redirection
-
We are using an IIS 7.5 server so I am looking into the best way to do 301 redirects in that. Seems like it would be much easier on a Linux based system.
-
Pay particular attention to load speed. HTTPS encrypts everything and sends it to the client browser where it is then decrypted. If certain pages are loading much slower or if you are using the same images/resources on multiple pages you will want to look at caching various resources.
As Highland mentioned, you'll want to make sure the code is using relative URLs and not hard coded "http" URLs because that will not only impact load time but it may give the visitor an undesirable experience if the site is all messed up. If you are on linux make sure that your .htaccess file does a 301 from http requests to https for obvious reasons.
I hope that helps!
-
I am using HTTP Watch right now and that seems to give a pretty good list of all my HTTP requests. Any other things to look for? I have been researching as much as I can find and want to make sure I get this all right on the first run.
-
The main thing you'll want to make sure is that all your JavaScript libraries and images are loading from HTTPS and not HTTP. If you don't, the browser may not load those resources or may show your site as not secured. The default Analytics code will do this for you, but make sure your other libraries are doing so. A great tool for finding any you've missed is Firebug, a Firefox addon. You open it up, load your website and on the Net tab you can see the URL of every resource loaded and even break them down by type (image, JS, etc).
Analytics itself is not affected by HTTPS. Your metrics will continue to load just fine.
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
-
Why is Indeed.com traffic appearing as organic in Google Analytics?
A large number of sessions in my client's Google Analytics account appear to come from medium: organic and source:Indeed. Since I'm focused on SEO for this project, I'd prefer that Indeed be treated as referral traffic. Any ideas for fixing this issue? Also, and I'm sure the answer is no, is there a way to fix the past data in Google Analytics that has already reported Indeed as an organic medium?
Reporting & Analytics | | Kevin_P0 -
UTM Links Showing Up as Separate Pages in Google Analytics
Hey everyone, I was just looking at landing pages in Google Analytics, and in addition to just the URL of the landing page, the UTM links are being listed as separate pages. Is this normal? I anticipated seeing the landing page URL and then using the secondary dimension to see source/medium. If this isn't normal, what would I check next?
Reporting & Analytics | | rachelmeyer0 -
What is Local SEO in Google Analytics (Organic Source)
Recently, I saw "Local SEO" is mentioned as the organic source. Can someone please tell what is this and from where Google is fetching data for this source?
Reporting & Analytics | | Kevin.Monks0 -
% Change - Google analytics - how to calculate?
Hi All,
Reporting & Analytics | | JohnPalmer
I have two dates with two different numbers I want to calculate the "% Change" like google analytics, The numbers of June 2015 - 127,931 sessions
The numbers of June 2014 - 90914 sessions please tell me what is the %Change. Best. J0 -
Referral Traffic vs. Campaign Traffic in Google Analytics
I have two sites: a blog and an ecommerce site. The blog funnels people to the ecommerce site. In Analytics I'm seeing declines in referral traffic from the blog to the ecommerce site. During the same time I'm seeing an increase in campaign traffic to the ecommerce site, with most campaign traffic coming from the blog. I believe the increase in campaign traffic is largely a result of simply having installed more tracking links. This leads me to believe that the declines I'm seeing in referral traffic is simply a result of the increase in campaign traffic. In other words, what was once counted and reported as being referral traffic is now being counted and reported as campaign traffic. So my question is this: In Google Analytics is campaign traffic ALSO reported as referral traffic, or is campaign traffic reported separately and not duplicated in referral traffic reports? I'll provide a concrete example to make this more clear in case it isn't: Say site X sends 1000 visits each month to site Y. Say 50 of those visits come from a single link on X. If that link is changed so that campaign Z data info added (via the Google URL Builder), would you expect to then see 950 referral visits each month from site X to site Y plus 50 campaign visits to site Y via new campaign Z, or would you continue to see 1000 referral visits plus the new 50 campaign visits? Many thanks in advance to anyone that can shed some light on this.
Reporting & Analytics | | aaronprimal0 -
Google Analytic - Is it possible to see which organic keyword triggered goals?
Hi, I am trying to see which of my Google organic keywords triggered my goals? In GA I click > Conversion > Goals > Overview > Source Medium (This then says where my goals came from but when I click Google / Organic it just brings me to the overview page of my organic traffic). Is it possible to see which organic keywords trigger goals?
Reporting & Analytics | | AdvanceSystems0 -
Is there a way to use Google Analytics event tracking for YouTube embedded videos on my website?
Hello! I am trying to track different types of interaction on the YouTube for videos which are embedded on a website to measure the interaction on these video from my organic traffic. Is there a good way to go about this with the code since these are coming from an iFrame on YouTube? Would appreciate any feedback or help on implementing the event tracking with YouTube videos. Many thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | CabbageTree0 -
Has Anyone Else Noticed A Jump In Google Analytics Traffic Since Session Parameters Were Changed?
Ever since Google Analytics changed their session parameters August 12th I have seen a 20% jump in organic traffic & bounce rates along with a decline in pages/visit and conversion rate. To be clear, I don't put a whole heck of a lot of stock in these metrics as stand-alone indications of how my site is performing. I'm just trying to get to the bottom of this blip. I noticed some other people mentioned a similar phenomenon in other SEO forums and blog comments, but nobody seems to be talking about this here at SEOMoz (unless I just haven't looked in the right place). I'm not saying the change I noticed has anything to do with the session update, I'm just wondering if anyone else has experienced something similar so that I can either cross it off the list of possible causes or explore further.
Reporting & Analytics | | eTundra0