Mass HTTP to HTTPs move
-
Hi,
As as part of an on-site SEO optimisation process, we've identified moving over from http to https - this is also in part to ensure our on-site forms are secure.
In our industry our website has a high traffic volume (top 2 in the industry), we are concerned what impact the 301-redirecting from http to https would have on our organic traffic, both in terms of how Google would react to this mass-301 redirect plus the loss of 'search value' of inbound links.
Privacy issues aside, would the minor quality-signal improvement be worth the move? Anyone have experience with such a move - was the outcome positive?
Many thanks,
Jason
-
Hi Cyrus,
Thanks for the feedback.
I'm concerned that some of the other more urgent on-site optimisation changes will already impact traffic volume in the short-term so I don't want to compound this further by making the switch over to HTTPS.
So this is off the table for now. Thanks everyone for the feedback on this.
More on the discussion side, Google shouldn't really be re-evaluating URLs when there is a protocol change in my opinion, especially when moving from http to https. It seems this would discourage site owners from making the move as organic traffic would be more valuable than user privacy.
-Jason
-
Alrighty! Thanks once again Cyrus
-
We observe only a small correlation between HTTPS sites and higher rankings (like 0.04) - so there's very little apparent pure SEO benefit. It really seems to be the "tie-breaker" Google claims, though this difference may increase in the future.
-
Thanks for sharing your experience and this great article Cyrus, really useful stuff.
What's your observation on post migration traffic trends? Does it makes sense to migrate to https for SEO perspective only?
-
Hi Jason,
I've been involved with a number of migrations (including this site, moz.com) and in my own experience I've seen anywhere from zero traffic change to a loss in the range of 8-9%.
Google says that in theory, you shouldn't lose any traffic, and several large publishers I've spoken with can attest to this.
In practice, HTTPS migrations can be complex, and with more moving parts the potential to do things less than perfectly can escalate. If you mess up your 301s or create confusing redirects, the potential for reduced traffic is real. My general advice is don't let the migration to HTTPS scare you, but proceed with caution. This post may help: https://moz.com/blog/seo-tips-https-ssl
-
Hi Jason,
Are you purely moving to SSL for the SEO benefit? Without knowing your site and any links I wouldn't be able to guess the impact. SSL is a relatively low ranking signal from what I can tell (and the studies into it) so I would hesitate to say that the benefit for the moving to ssl will out do the 301 redirects.
However, does the SSL have a benefit to your users? Will it help you increase conversion rates using it? Will you be able to put a trustmark on your site to help convert higher? This should help with your business case as any change you do should be to help your site perform better (either through money as a business or through informing people if you're a charity)
-
Hi Jason,
I had a word with a friend who handled the similar project for a large organisation a month back and what they observed is, the traffic went down initially for sometime and picked up the flow later on.
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
-
Schema redirects for https migration
Hi, we are migrating our website to https. We have a lot of 301s in htaccess that we need to keep, changing the destiny to the https version of the site. At the same time, we need to make new 301 redirects from the http url´s to https url´s
Technical SEO | | unirmk
Our question is Could we combine this redirects in htaccess with a Schema redirect with 301 code? (Is it the same to use schema redirecs as using redirects in htaccess?) This would be the situation: Htaccess redirects: A http url ->301-> B http url -> (we change this in htaccess and use:)-> A http url ->301->B https url Schema redirect: B http url ->301-> B https url Thanks!0 -
150+ Pages of URL Parameters - Mass Duplicate Content Issue?
Hi we run a large e-commerce site and while doing some checking through GWT we came across these URL parameters and are now wondering if we have a duplicate content issue. If so, we are wodnering what is the best way to fix them, is this a task with GWT or a Rel:Canonical task? Many of the urls are driven from the filters in our category pages and are coming up like this: page04%3Fpage04%3Fpage04%3Fpage04%3F (See the image for more). Does anyone know if these links are duplicate content and if so how should we handle them? Richard I7SKvHS
Technical SEO | | Richard-Kitmondo0 -
Which Sitemap to keep - Http or https (or both)
Hi, Just finished upgrading my site to the ssl version (like so many other webmasters now that it may be a ranking factor). FIxed all links, CDN links are now secure, etc and 301 Redirected all pages from http to https. Changed property in Google Analytics from http to https and added https version in Webmaster Tools. So far, so good. Now the question is should I add the https version of the sitemap in the new HTTPS site in webmasters or retain the existing http one? Ideally switching over completely to https version by adding a new sitemap would make more sense as the http version of the sitemap would anyways now be re-directed to HTTPS. But the last thing i can is to get penalized for duplicate content. Could you please suggest as I am still a rookie in this department. If I should add the https sitemap version in the new site, should i delete the old http one or no harm retaining it.
Technical SEO | | ashishb010 -
What is the better way to fix duplication https and http?
Hi All! I have a doubt about how to fix the duplication problem https @ http. What is the better way to fix it in your opionion/experience? Me, for instance, I have chosen to put "noindex, nofollow" into https version. Each page of my site has a https version so I put this metarobots into it....But I am not sure about what happens with all backlinks with "https" URLs I have, I've just checked I have some...What do you think about it? Thanks in advance for helping!
Technical SEO | | Red_educativa0 -
Is it needed to use http:// or not?
Hi, When doing link building and getting my URL to other websites, is it necessary that the other websites include http:// before the domain? Example: I want to increase the number of links to my site www.example.com . When I ask other websites to add a link to my site, should I ask them to use http://www.example.com or is www.example.com enough (without http://)? Or it really does not matter? Thanks in advance, Sam
Technical SEO | | Awaraman0 -
HTTP 500 Internal Server Error, Need help
Hi, For a few days know google crawlers have been getting 500 errors from our dedicated server whenever they try to crawl the site. Using the "Fetch as Google" tool under health in webmaster tools, I get "Unreachable page" every time I fetch the homepage. Here is exactly what the google crawler is getting: <code>HTTP/1.1 500 Internal Server Error Date: Fri, 21 Jun 2013 19:52:27 GMT Server: Apache/2.2.15 (CentOS) X-Powered-By: PHP/5.3.3 X-Pingback: [http://www.communityadvocate.com/xmlrpc.php](http://www.communityadvocate.com/xmlrpc.php) Connection: close Transfer-Encoding: chunked Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8 http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> My url is [http://www.communityadvocate.com](http://www.communityadvocate.com/)</code> and here's the screenshot from Goolge webmater http://screencast.com/t/FoWvqRRtmoEQ How can i fix that? Thank you
Technical SEO | | Vmezoz0 -
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 -
Moving domain.com to subdomain.domain.com
Hi, I like to do something, but first like to take some opinions from seomoz. My question is: 1. I have a domain: brandtrends.com and i like to move this from brandtrends.com to trends.brand.com because: brandtrends.com is on the position #15 on the second page of SERP for my "brand" keyword. I like to move it under trends.brand.com but all inbound-links are @brandtrends.com What do you thing, if i move permanently 301 from brandtrends.com to trends.brand.com does it rank under brand.com on the 1st page of SERP..? like to rank trends.brand.com under brand.com on results page...!!! I have the backlinks of brandtrends.com on my hands too, should i leave the inbound links @brandtrends.com and the new ones i build with trends.brand.com or should i change the inbound links from brandtrends.com to trends.brand.com Hope you got it! THanks
Technical SEO | | leadsprofi0