Http > https Switch Before Platform Migration?
-
We are planning a series of large site migrations over the next 12-18 months, moving from one platform to another. It's likely the first will be completed by around Aug this year, with the process running until the back end of 2018.
The sites are currently on http, and the plan is to first of all migrate all sites to https in the next couple of months. The concern is that, due to the http>https 301 redirects that will be in place, are we putting ourselves at unnecessary risk by effectively carrying out 2 migrations in the space of a year (in terms of loss of potential authority caused by redirects)? Would we be better to wait, and implement https at point of platform migration instead?
Thoughts appreciated.
-
"The concern is that, due to the http>https 301 redirects that will be in place, are we putting ourselves at unnecessary risk by effectively carrying out 2 migrations in the space of a year (in terms of loss of potential authority caused by redirects)?"
In February 2016, Google’s John Mueller announced that SEO equity or PageRank will no longer be lost when a 301 or 302 redirect is used in conjunction with an HTTP to HTTPS migration. While some of us doubted this statement, Gary Illyes tweeted the same thing in July 2016 and Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Land confirmed it. There is no loss of authority caused by redirects when you implement HTTPS.
"Would we be better to wait, and implement https at point of platform migration instead?"
I think the approach you're taking (convert to https first) is a good one. It affords you better control and is a good use of available resources.
-
Do you have a list of all links pointing to the webpages you are trying to redirect on the new launch? If the structure of your website changes, I would use my remaining development time to minify the time you are going to invest in changing them. So 301 is good, but it is better if you can change the external and internal links that you can to point to the new pages. After that, do the 301s. The migration will take development changes but also a lot of link fixing. Although https is a ranking factor, I don't see it as an urgent move. It is your call but I would use the time to prepare a really good migration. Good luck!
-
Thanks for the responses both.
The only reason we are splitting is because the new platform is still being completed (custom built), whereas we have spare development resource on the legacy platform. From that point of view, it would appear to make sense to complete the http>https migration now. Of course, the earlier we implement, the earlier we stand a chance of seeing a positive impact.
I am just slightly wary of the potential for ranking losses, based off migrating our URLs twice in one year. What would be your thoughts on this?
We do process sensitive data, but on those relevant pages we do already implement secure protocol. The above relates to site wide pages.
-
Hi Nicola! What are your reasons for splitting the migration? Is your site processing sensitive data? If yes, https is an ASAP problem for you since Chrome will already give your users some trouble when navigating your website. If not, I think you will be better of with a single migration. But again, could you give some details regarding your thoughts and reasoning about this? There could be multiple aspects that influence this decision.
-
Hey Nicola,
I'll share my thought about this issue. However, I'm sure there are many approaches to that.
I would suggest to do firstly the HTTP -> HTTPS migration as far as it's one of the ranking factors according to Google - see the official Google blog here: https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2014/08/https-as-ranking-signal.html
You'll save the precious time, Google will see that you "upgraded" your website and that you keep pace with the trends. If you would start firstly with the platform migration, you would loose several months waiting for this to be done before starting HTTP -> HTTPS.
Hope you get my idea. Cheers, Martin
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
-
Http to https Canonical Question
Hello Fellow Moz Friends I have recently went from http to https for the website. Do I keep my canonicals at http or make all https? Will this affect ranking signals? Anything I should be looking out for? Thank you.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Carwrapsolutions0 -
Can i migrate to a new domain without losing rankings?
we are looking at migrating to a new domain name, but worried about current rankings.. can we do this and keep our rankings if we 301? if we can expect a dip, how long will that generally take? thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Direct_Ram0 -
Domain switch planned - new domain accessible - until the switch: redirect from new to old domain with 307?
Hi there, We are going to switch our local domain oldsite.at to newsite.com in November. As our IT department wants to use the newsite.com already for email traffic till then, the domain newsite.com has to be accessible for public and currently shows the default Apache page without useful content. The old domain has quite some trust, the new domain is a first time registered domain (not known by search engines yet and no published anyhow). The domain was parked till now. I am aware of the steps to take for the switch itself, but: **what to do with the newsite.com domain until everything is prepared for the switch? **I suppose users or search engines find the domain and as there is no useful information available it harms us already. My idea was to 307 redirect newsite.com to the oldsite.at but the concern is that this causes problems as soon as we switch the domain and redirecting with 301 from oldsite.at to newsite.com? Do you have any objections or other recommendations? Thank you a lot in advance.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | comicron0 -
301 process, migration to new domain
Hi all! We have an old site wordpress based, with great ranking and PR 7, called www.europe-internship.com which is going to be migrated into our new Django site www.eurasmus.com (specifically eurasmus.com/en/europe-internships)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Eurasmus.com
The new one is a much more advanced version that we will keep developing. We have been migrating the information already but we are planning to apply the 301s in the next weeks to start passing the SEO value to our new site and traffic. We have all the url structures and everything checked and technically we are ready for it.
Therefore, we are almost ready. I have 2 questions: The new site includes more services, like accommodation, information...not only internships. Therefore, should we point the most relevant urls from our previous site to our home to share the value or just to the internships section? I am afraid that if the bounce rate goes higher from the 301 we could loose some value... 2)Should we point all the urls at the same time to the new site? Home, vacancies, blog pages, etc... or start gradually doing it to see how it goes till we make it to all the pages including the home? The old site still makes some money and I am not sure how quick will be to pass the SEO value, so in the way we may loose few thousand euros...We understand that, but we want to check what would be the best in your opinion. Let me know what you think and your opinion! Thank you in advance!0 -
Why is a site no longer being indexed by Google after HTTPS switch?
A client of ours recently had a new site built and made the switch to HTTPS. We made sure to redirect all of the HTTP pages to HTTPS and submitted a new sitemap to Google. GWT says the sitemap was submitted successfully but only 4 pages have been indexed where there should be over 2000. This has led to a plummet of organic traffic and we can't find the issue. Has anyone else had issues/success with doing a HTTPS switch that knows how to fix this problem?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ATMOSMarketing560 -
Do Google use HTTPS as a trust indicator?
Scenario: Two sites, exactly the same with a form to capture customer details on the home page (e.g. name, address). Would Google rank a site that uses HTTPS over a site that uses HTTP? From what I've heard, they would trust the HTTPS site more than HTTP and therefore rank it higher. Forum opinions?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PeterAlexLeigh0 -
Experience with 307 HTTP status code
Hello, is there anybody how has got some experience with 307 HTTP status code? We would like to use 307 HTTP status code (temp redirect) for disabling temporary some of our shop-categories where all products are out of stock. Generally a few days or hours later products are back in stock and category page is also back. Is it a good idea to use 307 beccause link sould be disabled temorary or should we use 301 instead? Best regards Steffen
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | steffen_0 -
Push for site-wide https, but all pages in index are http. Should I fight the tide?
Hi there, First Q&A question 🙂 So I understand the problems caused by having a few secure pages on a site. A few links to the https version a page and you have duplicate content issues. While there are several posts here at SEOmoz that talk about the different ways of dealing with this issue with respect to secure pages, the majority of this content assumes that the goal of the SEO is to make sure no duplicate https pages end up in the index. The posts also suggest that https should only used on log in pages, contact forms, shopping carts, etc." That's the root of my problem. I'm facing the prospect of switching to https across an entire site. In the light of other https related content I've read, this might seem unecessary or overkill, but there's a vaild reason behind it. I work for a certificate authority. A company that issues SSL certificates, the cryptographic files that make the https protocol work. So there's an obvious need our site to "appear" protected, even if no sensitive data is being moved through the pages. The stronger push, however, stems from our membership of the Online Trust Alliance. https://otalliance.org/ Essentially, in the parts of the internet that deal with SSL and security, there's a push for all sites to utilize HSTS Headers and force sitewide https. Paypal and Bank of America are leading the way in this intiative, and other large retailers/banks/etc. will no doubt follow suit. Regardless of what you feel about all that, the reality is that we're looking at future that involves more privacy protection, more SSL, and more https. The bottom line for me is; I have a site of ~800 pages that I will need to switch to https. I'm finding it difficult to map the tips and tricks for keeping the odd pesky https page out of the index, to what amounts to a sitewide migratiion. So, here are a few general questions. What are the major considerations for such a switch? Are there any less obvious pitfalls lurking? Should I even consider trying to maintain an index of http pages, or should I start work on replacing (or have googlebot replace) the old pages with https versions? Is that something that can be done with canonicalization? or would something at the server level be necessary? How is that going to affect my page authority in general? What obvious questions am I not asking? Sorry to be so longwinded, but this is a tricky one for me, and I want to be sure I'm giving as much pertinent information as possible. Any input will be very much appreciated. Thanks, Dennis
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | dennis.globalsign0