Http and https protocols being indexed for e-commerce website
-
Hi team,
Our new e-commerce website has launched and I've noticed both http and https protocols are being indexed.
Our old website was http with only the necessary pages running https (cart, checkout etc). No https pages were indexed and you couldn't access a https page if you manually typed it into the browser.
We outrank our competition by a mile, so I'm treading carefully here and don't want to undo the progress we made on the old site, so I have a few questions:
1. How exactly do we remove one protocol from the index? We are running on Drupal. We tried a hard redirect from https to http and excluded the relevant pages (cart, login etc from the redirect), but found that you could still access https pages if you we're in the cart (https) and then pressed back on the browser button for example. At that point you could browse the entire site on https.
2. Is the safer option to emulate what we had in place on the old website e.g http with only the necessary pages being https, rather than making the switch to sitewide https?
I've been struggling with this one, so any help would be much appreciated.
Jake S
-
Just checked my GA data and you're right. Referral data from mountainjade.co.nz is there. Thanks for the heads up.
I've decided to make the switch to https, so will be organising that with dev in the coming few weeks. I'll keep you posted!
Cheers for the help again Logan,
I owe ya.
-
Great!
I've decided to make the full switch to https now, rather than wait to do it.
I will report back and let you know how it all goes!
Thanks for your help Laura.
-
I don't know why this didn't cross my mind until now, but having both versions can also mess up your Google Analytics data. Going from one to the other (can't remember which direction) creates a new session. You've probably got a lot of self-referring traffic showing up in your reports.
-
Hey Bas,
My developers share your sentiment!
Both versions of the website can be accessed by both the customer and the bots, but because we use relative urls, it can switch between http and https is a single session. This is one example:
1. Land on the homepage from a google search (http homepage is indexed).
2. Browse site on http. Add something to cart. Go to cart.
3. Cart switches to https. Navigate out of cart back into website.
4. Now urls are all https because the links on our site are relative and don't specify a protocol (e.g customer is in cart and then wants to check contact us page, it's link when clicked is as follows [Contact](/contact us). So it pulls the https protocol as there is not http protocol specified in that contact us link.
Hmmm, it definitely could be effecting UX and conversion.
-
Ideally, you'll migrate the entire site to https, and Cyrus' guide is a good one. Google has some helpful info for an http to https migration at https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6073543?hl=en.
The canonical tag solution is for the situation where you can't or don't want to go ahead and switch the whole site over to https right away. Either way, make sure Google knows, either through 301-redirects or canonical tags, that the http and https versions are the same page.
-
Hi Laura,
Wow, when I said we have self referencing canonicals in place (through Drupal Yoast) I hadn't even thought that it could be applying a canonical to the https version of the site aswell.
I just crawled both http and https and as you're right, the following is happening:
http://example.com is canonicalized to http://example.com
https://example.com is canonicalized to https://example.com
But I'm a little confused. In my first post I was looking for help because google was indexing both http and https pages. Are you saying that it's because of these canonicals that google is indexing both? Would it index both even if I didn't have the canonicals in place but still had SSL?
Just to confirm, canonicalizing the http URLs to the https URLs will tell google to fold the http URLs into the https and only index the https version of the site? Would I need to follow the https migration guide by Cyrus when doing this, or is this not really a 'migration' to https as we're not forcing the customer to browse in https?
Bear with me!
-
I agree with the others. I think you should pick a horse and ride it. Indecision is only causing more confusion on Google's part and is going to hurt you in the long run. Google says they prefer HTTPS and I've seen evidence of that. You're already paying for an SSL so you might as well use it to the max.
As Laura said, if you've got self-referring canonical tags on both secure and non-secure URLs, you're setting yourself up for some pretty big issues.
-
Hi Jacob,
I understand the issue. I think that this way you're not making a decision where you really should:
Either you use non-ssl or either you use ssl. To continue with the both is a terrible situation: nobody really knows what the they are supposed to know.For instance: is it possible that someone starts on the thomepage (non-ssl), goes to a product page (ssl) and then to the shopping cart which is again non-ssl? If that is the case you should really check your conversion rate because that in itself might be very damaging as well.
Yours,
Bas -
When you say you currently have self referencing canonicals, is the following happening?
The page http://example.com is canonicalized to http://example.com.
The page https://example.com is canonicalized to https://example.com.
If so, this is the bigger problem because Google sees these as 2 different URLs and may index both of them. Furthermore, you could be splitting backlinks between 2 URLs unnecessarily. This duplicate issue may be part of the reason you saw organic traffic drop when you launched your new site.
If the HTTPS URLs are already being indexed by Google, go ahead and canonicalize the http URLs to the https URLs. In other words, http://example.com will canonicalize to https://example.com.
By setting up the canonical this way, Google will fold the two URLs together and correctly treat them as the same page.
-
Good morning Laura,
Thanks for the advice.
I've replied below to Logan giving a little context. If you could take a look and let me know your thoughts it would be a huge help.
-
Hi again Logan,
I've tossed up whether or not to make the full switch to https for a while now. I'll give you a little background so you understand my position:
When our new website launched, our organic search traffic took a dip of around 15%. It has taken around two months for it to recover (almost). We changed site structure out of necessity but followed best practise to ensure we didn't undo alot of the work we had done with the old website. With the 15% organic rankings dip we saw a corresponding dip in revenue, so what I don't want to do is muddy the waters anymore than they already are by adding more moving parts to the mix (migration / redesign / http to https). And we cannot risk another dip in revenue so close to the first which may come with a full https migration (do you think?).
This is why I'm leaning toward replicating what we had in place on the old website and only forcing https on the necessary pages.
Now that you understand my position, would you still recommend the switch to https? I would love to know your thoughts.
The catch with all of this is I'm not sure exactly how the http https was implemented on the old website. At that point in time I had no need to know.
We currently have self referencing canonicals which you know we need to maintain, particularly on product pages which use URL parameters. We are also using relative links across the entire website.
Therefore, what would be the best solution here? Down the rabbit hole we go...
Thanks for your time,
-
Hi Jacob,
Cyrus Shepard put together a great guide on HTTPS migrations. Since you've already got an SSL, you may as well apply it to the whole site and set your preferred domain as HTTPS (as Laura and Bas mentioned). In the guide, he details the best ways to ensure search engines index the version you want via 301 redirect rules, canonical tags, and XML sitemaps. Don't forget to set up Search Console properties for HTTPS - www and non-www versions and set your preferred domain there as well.
Run this query in Google to monitor what they've got in their index as the canonical domain: info:mountainjade.co.nz
-
Agree with Laura: better to let the https be indexed. Nice links by the way for this topic.
Bas
-
In your case, the best thing to do is set up canonical tags to let Google know which version of the URL should be indexed. That way, it doesn't matter if Google can access the https page, and you won't have the duplicate content problem that you have now.
I can't advise you on the best way to set this up with Drupal, but you'll need to be wary of any type of automatic canonical tags. You may end up with an "http" canonical link on the http page and an "https" canonical link on the https page. That doesn't solve the problem at all.
If you are not already familiar with canonical tags, you can learn more at the links below.
- https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/139066?hl=en
- https://moz.com/learn/seo/canonicalization
- https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2013/04/5-common-mistakes-with-relcanonical.html
By the way, I would set it up so that Google indexes the https version of your pages rather than the http version.
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 this page de-indexed?
I have dropped out for all my first page KWDs for this page https://www.key.co.uk/en/key/dollies-load-movers-door-skates Can anyone see an issue? I am trying to find one.... We did just migrate to HTTPS but other areas have no problem
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeckyKey0 -
Redirecting M Dot Mobile Website to Responsive Design Website Questions
Hi amazing Moz community 🙂 Couldn't find this question anywhere, and knew this was the place to ask! We are helping a client redirect an M Dot website to a Responsive Design website. We want to retain our mobile rankings for keywords. Three questions - We should use 301 redirects from the M Dot website to the new website correct? (not 302s?) How long does it take for Google to understand that we have launched a responsive website? Can we remove the 301 redirects after a few days (if the M Dot website interferes/breaks the new Responsive website)? We have verified an account on Google Search Console for the M Dot website, along with a mobile sitemap that has been submitted and verified. What should we do with this M Dot GSC account? Just delete it? Or keep it and upload the NEW XML Sitemap with the new WWW links (because the website is responsive). THANK YOU!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | accpar0 -
Moving to https: Double Redirects
We're migrating our site to https and I have the following question: We have some old url's that we are 301ing to new ones. If we switch over to https then we will be forced to do a double-redirect for these url's. Will this have a negative SEO impact? If so, is there anything that we can do about it?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | YairSpolter0 -
Home page not being indexed
Hi Moz crew. I have two sites (one is a client's and one is mine). They are both Wordpress sites and both are hosted on WP Engine. They have both been set up for a long time, and are "on-page" optimized. Pages from each site are indexed, but Google is not indexing the homepage for either site. Just to be clear - I can set up and work on a Wordpress site, but am not a programmer. Both seem to be fine according to my Moz dashboard. I have Webmaster tools set up for each - and as far as I can tell (definitely not an exper in webmaster tools) they are okay. I have done the obvious and checked that the the box preventing Google from crawling is not checked, and I believe I have set up the proper re-directs and canonicals.Thanks in advance! Brent
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EchelonSEO0 -
Can anyone tell me if this website was built with Frontpage or another cookie cutter drag and drop website creator by looking at the source code?
Can anyone tell me if this website was built with Frontpage or another cookie cutter drag and drop website creator by looking at the source code? http://naturespremiumpestdefense.com/ Thanks, Russell
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ULTRASEM0 -
About to launch a new e-commerce site need help with anchor text's
Hey guys, I need some advice regarding the keywords I want to target for a new website. The website is e-commerce and is about 60% done but i wanted some advice. home page - http://www.diamondengagement.com/ For link building purposes I only want to target the domain name for the anchor text "diamond engagement" and "diamondengagement.com" for internal pages like .... http://www.diamondengagement.com/engagement-rings/ I want this page to rank for "engagement rings" but that's a very competitive keyword. I was thinking for the first 3 or 4 months I only build links to this page with the domain name again "diamond engagement" and phrase anchor text's using "diamond engagement" than just out right building "engagement rings" or "engagement ring" to start off. What are your thoughts??
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | harrykabadaian0 -
Indexing non-indexed content and Google crawlers
On a news website we have a system where articles are given a publish date which is often in the future. The articles were showing up in Google before the publish date despite us not being able to find them linked from anywhere on the website. I've added a 'noindex' meta tag to articles that shouldn't be live until a future date. When the date comes for them to appear on the website, the noindex disappears. Is anyone aware of any issues doing this - say Google crawls a page that is noindex, then 2 hours later it finds out it should now be indexed? Should it still appear in Google search, News etc. as normal, as a new page? Thanks. 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Alex-Harford0 -
Another E-commerce Canonical Question
Hi guys, Quick question: one of our clients has an e-commerce site with a very poor canonical tag setup and thousands of pages of duplicate content. Let's use this as an example: BRAND > Category > Type > Color
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | elcrazyhorse
Four separate pages/URLs. The BRAND page lists all products.
The Category page lists all BRAND products for that category.
The Type page lists all BRAND products of a specific type in that category.
The Color page lists all BRAND products of a specific type in that category of a specific color. Anyway, these generate four separate URLs: /BRAND
/BRAND/Category
/BRAND/Category-Type
/BRAND/Category-Type-Color Avoiding duplicate content and product listings, I would appreciate your proposed canonicalization strategy/feedback.0