Moving Main Site from HTTP to HTTPS: Seeking Quick Items to Consider
-
Hey Mozzers!
We're going to be moving are main company site from http://whiteboardcreations.com > https://whiteboardcreations.com and wanted to get some of your quick tips for items we need to consider. We are working on a new web redesign now and keeping in WordPress. A couple facts for your info... We have read a lot about it, but wanted to get some quick tips we need to take into account from your points of view.1. March 2010 domain age
2. Ranks very well locally for our targeted keywords around web design, WordPress, SEO, social media, blog writing, web maintenance
3. Not many of our competitors, especially the SEO competitors, have moved to HTTPS
4. Site is hosted at WP Engine
5. Going to be purchasing a Domain Validated SSL... Is there any advantage to an Extended Validated SSL in Google's eye/mind?
6. Should we expect rank decrease or increase?
7. Anything else we should expect or prepare for from your experiences?Thank you!
Patrick -
Hey! Yes, we made the switch to SSL and everything went smooth. We set up our 301 redirects and submitted to Google right away. No real loss in traffic and our rankings for the 100+ keywords we monitor either remained the same or increased a little over the first couple months. So, that was pleasant to see and experience.
The real test is when we finish and launch the new design, however, we will be working to keep our URL structure the same, but will be adding many more pages to the site focused on more educational/SEO friendly content. Not really caring if searchers stumble across it in their browsing, but moreso that Google indexes the content for our targeted keywords those pages are designed to capture and rank for (inner landing pages).
As long as we're keeping our authoritative pages un-drastically changed, the URL remains the same and the content is about the same, we shouldn't experience much loss in rankings of traffic. If anything, we should see new keywords ranking very well in a short amount of time and our traffic increasing. We'll see come end of 2015, into 2016!
-
Hi Patrick,
did you do the move to https and what were your results?
We did it and lost 50% traffic. I am wondering if it is just us or many others. I have another few cases were the same thing happened and just trying to get more real world feedback. what happened with you guys?
-
I have been postponing the switch on my Wordpress site anticipating grief!
Did you use the WP Enging "sandbox" to build the new site? I'm probably going to use my offline test box (WAMP) since my host doesn't provide a test area.
Best,
-
Andy, great tip on the WP image URLs!! Honestly, that never crossed our mind and will be sifting through to find them and update them all.
I really appreciate the feedback on the rank increase. I would enjoy seeing that for some of the other keywords we see lingering on the top of Page 2... hopefully see those get a little push to Page 1.
We installed the DV SSL yesterday and working through the redirects. We should be finished tomorrow and have all testing completed and verified by end of the week.
All in all, a great new experience for an older domain with some good authority built up. Thanks again!
- Patrick
-
Thanks, Chris! Yes, we are working through the force redirects as the SSL just went through yesterday. A great learning experience and hopefully will have it all resolved soon. Working closely with WP Engine tech guys has been a breath of fresh air too. - Patrick
-
Thanks for your input, Patrick! I actually referenced your post for another client, so I'm glad it is applicable to a HTTPS update as well.
-
Hey Patrick not sure if this is an issue or not but I notice if I enter http and your urls, your site serves the http version. Clicking on any menu item goes to https, but I would think the http should be re-directed to https?
-
Hi Patrick
I answered a similar question of things to consider when moving a site. You can read that here.
Hope this helps! Good luck!
-
Hi Patrick,
First of all, visit Google and follow their guide. This will provide you with everything you need to know and there are even more very good considerations here.
Check everything and then check it again. Make sure with Wordpress that images reference https, not http, as this is a common issue. I have also seen the same with how Google Fonts are referenced.
Going to be purchasing a Domain Validated SSL... Is there any advantage to an Extended Validated SSL in Google's eye/mind?
No, nothing in doing this.
Should we expect rank decrease or increase?
You should expect an increase, but there is absolutely no guarantee of this, and if so, by how much.
When the move is complete, check your pages that show (if any) a warning triangle as this denotes a page issue. You find this in the developer console in Chrome (Inspect Element --> Console). This will tell you where issues lie.
Finally, make sure you set your site to https://www.site.com from http://www.site.com
-Andy
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
-
My site is showing indexed in search console but not appearing in Serps
hi, i have recently made sites.google site and submitted to search console but when I copy paste in google , its not appearing
Algorithm Updates | | alan-shultis0 -
Wordpress Blog Integrated into eCommerce site - Should we use one xml sitemap or two?
Hi guys, I wonder whether you can help me with a couple of SEO queries: So we have an ecommerce website (www.exampleecommercesite.com) with its own xml sitemap, which we have submitted to the Google Webmasters Console. However, recently we decided to add a blog to our site for SEO purposes. The blog is on a subdomain of the site such as: blog.exampleecommercesite.com (We wanted to have it as www.exampleecommercesite.com/blog but our server made it very difficult and it wasn't technically possible at the time) 1. Should we add the blog.exampleecommercesite.com as a separate property in the Google Webmaster tools? 2. Should we create a separate xml sitemap for the blog content or are there more benefits in terms of SEO if we have one sitemap for the blog and the ecommerce site? If appreciate your opinions on the topic! Thank you and have a good start of the week!
Algorithm Updates | | Firebox0 -
Site not indexed on Google UK after 4 days?
Hello!
Algorithm Updates | | digitalsoda
Wonder if anyone can help with this one? I have an ecommerce site www.doggydazzles.co.uk which went live on Friday and was submitted to Google via webmaster tools on saturday morning, but I can't find any trace of it in a google search?
I'm a bit stuck with this as its never happened to any of my other sites.
Can anyone help please or make suggestions as to what I can do to get ranked quicker? Thanks0 -
Top resulting sites sites for a specific keyword
I'm teaching myself SEO so that I can speak more intelligently to it with my clients. I've spent a great deal of time on seomoz and love it. The more I learn, the more I realize I don't know and that brings me to my current question. I can search on a keyword and see results, however I see every URL available. I'm looking for a simple way to see the root domains for the top 100-500 resulting websites for a specific keyword. Is there an easy way to get this information I'm sure it's right in front of me, but I can't find it. Many thanks, ahossom
Algorithm Updates | | ahossom0 -
Non .Com or .Co Versus .ca or .fm sites - In terms of SEO value
We are launching a new site with a non traditional top level domain . We were looking at either .ca or .in as we are not able to get the traditional .com or .co or .net etc . I was wondering if this has any SEO effect ? Does Google/Bing treat this domain differently .Will it be penalized ? Note : My site is a US based site targeting US audience
Algorithm Updates | | Chaits0 -
Google site links on sub pages
Hi all Had a look for info on this one but couldn't find much. I know these days that if you have a decent domain good will often automatically put site links on for your home if someone searches for your company name, however has anyone seen these links appear for sub pages? For example, lets say I had a .com domain with /en /fr /de sub folders, each seoed for their location. If I were to then have domain.com/en/ as no1 in Google for my company in the UK would I be able to get site links under this or does it only work on the 'proper' homepage domain.com/ A client of mine wants to reorganise their website so they have different location sections ranking in different markets but they also want to keep having sitewide links as they like the look of it Thanks Carl
Algorithm Updates | | Grumpy_Carl0 -
Higher rank created a quick boost but it didn't last..
I made a few changes to my website which bumped it up to 3rd place for the main keyword and brought it up to the first page for some of the other keywords. I saw a spike in traffic and conversions for 2 days, but now it went down significantly again. How can I research the cause of this?
Algorithm Updates | | Mariannag72820 -
Best Way to Determine Age of Site
What's the best way to determine the age of a site? Where by it's beginning I mean when it went through the Google Sandbox and has been a functioning site every since. Thanks!
Algorithm Updates | | BobGW0