What effect does HTTPS have on SEO for a public site?
-
I have a client who I've been working with for 4 months but getting NO TRACTION at all on their SERPS.
This is unusual for me!
The only difference to their site from other clients is that the whole site is https so I'm wondering if that's making a big difference.
The site is: https://www.cnc-ltd.co.uk
Any help of hints would be great
thanks in advance
Steve
-
Hi Kevin/Steve
Having a whole https sites tend to take longer to respond to the first byte and load i've found, which seem to be increasingly important in rankings.
I believe this can have an effect if the competition have faster more established sites and you are trying to get above them.
But another train of thought is that google may also trust you more if its a whole https site, so following Kevin's advice and having a https may be the most effective long term, unfortunately clients don't tend to like to wait.
Regards
Paul
-
Thanks Kevin,
I'll need to work harder to get them some rankings then
Cheers
Steve
-
No, http/https doesn't heavily matter in the serps (https is a bit slower, so the answer is actually a bit). However, it may have to do w/the implementation of the ssl.
Great post on it from Franz: http://moz.com/ugc/seo-for-https-with-s-like-secure
"Do you work on a big company site where everything is within the secure protocol? If so, these are what you have to keep in mind for your onsite optimization:
- If done right, an https site can rank as well as an http site.
- Keep all your certificates valid, all the time, 24/7/365.
- Https sites are more work for the servers, so there is the possibility of a slower download. Keep your site and the certificate on a high performance host. If it takes too long to download a site Googlebot might go bye bye.
- The https-site and the http-site are two completely different sites; it’s a little bit like having a www version of the site and a non-www version. Make sure you have 301 redirects from the http URLs to the https ones.
- The robots.txt is only valid if placed within the same protocol as the site. Place it within the https protocol.
- The same goes for the sitemap.xml, Google verification file, and the other stuff.
Additionally: Keep all your files (images, iframes, etc) within the https protocol. There still is a nasty pop-up in Internet Explorer (6, maybe 7 too) if done otherwise. "
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
-
Our clients Magento 2 site has lots of obsolete categories. Advice on SEO best practice for setting server level redirects so I can delete them?
Our client's Magento website has been running for at least a decade, so has a lot of old legacy categories for Brands they no longer carry. We're looking to trim down the amount of unnecessary URL Redirects in Magento, so my question is: Is there a way that is SEO efficient to setup permanent redirects at a server level (nginx) that Google will crawl to allow us at some point to delete the categories and Magento URL Redirects? If this is a good practice can you at some point then delete the server redirects as google has marked them as permanent?
Technical SEO | | Breemcc0 -
Why is my site not being indexed?
Hi, I have performed a site:www.menshealthanswers.co.uk search on Google and none of the pages are being indexed. I do not have a "noindex" value on my robot tag This is what is in place: Any ideas? Jason
Technical SEO | | Jason_Marsh1230 -
Site hacked in Jan. Redeveloped new site. Still not ranking. Should we change domain?
Our top ranking site in the UK was hacked at the end of 2014. http://www.ultimatefloorsanding.co.uk/ The site was the subject of a manual spam action from Google. After several unsuccessful attempts to clean it up, using Securi.net and reinstating old versions of the site, changing passwords etc. we took the decision to redevelop the site. We also changed hosting provider as we had received absolutely no support from them whatsoever in resolving the issue. So far we have: Removed the old website files off the server Developed a new website having implemented 301's for all the old URL's (except the spam ones) Submitted a reconsideration request for the manual spam action, which was accepted. Disavowed all the spammy inbound links through Webmaster Tools Implemented custom URL parameters through Google to not index the SPAM URLs ( which were using parameters) Our organic traffic is down by 63% compared to last year, and we are not ranking for most of our target keywords any longer. Is there anything that I am missing in the actions I have taken so far? We were advised that at this stage changing domain and starting again might be the way to go. However the current domain has been used by us since 2007, so it would be a big call. Any advice is appreciated, thanks. Sue - http://www.ultimatefloorsanding.co.uk/
Technical SEO | | galwaygirl0 -
Website analysis for SEO
Hi, We have been trying to gain ranking for 7 keywords for a year now but have been unsuccessful We are not sure where we are going wrong, if someone could please help us out, we are happy to pay for your time.
Technical SEO | | mframing0 -
SEO for Interspire Relic
Hi All, Does anyone know of optimization best practices for the now largely defunct Interspire Web Publisher? Specifically, I'm looking for a canonical plugin or workaround to try and get rid of a few duplicate content issues (most importantly root vs. index.php). I'd like to just redo the site with a cms that has better support...unfortunately client budget constraints are a little tight at the moment. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | G2W0 -
My seo company has a footer link that links to my site by keyword will this effect my rankings
My old SEo company has a footer link by keyword to my site so it acts like a site wide link will this effect my rankings. My site was in the top 5 for many keywords now page 2 and 3 so I am trying to see what has effected it as we havent changed what we do
Technical SEO | | Casefun0 -
Site redesign/cleanup SEO Advice
Hi Everyone, New member here, but loving it. I have some questions that I couldn't find the answers to. We are radically changing our site. Over the years it has accumulated thousands of garbage files, WP installations, etc. We enjoy good rankings for lots of our keywords. Are there articles/advice/suggestions on how to do this with the least harm to our rankings? One of the largest concerns is for pages currently ranked and we want to move them to blog posts with a preceding /blog/ in the url. The filename, title, etc. will all remain identical. the url is www.wulongforlife.com Sure appreciate any advice. Thanks in advance.
Technical SEO | | okuma0 -
Site Hosting Question
We are UK based web designers who have recently been asked to build a website for an Australian Charity. Normally we would host the website in the UK with our current hosting company, but as this is an Australian website with an .au domain I was wondering if it would be better to host it in Australia. If it is better to host it in Australia, I would appreciate if someone could give me the name of a reasonably priced hosting company. Thanks Fraser
Technical SEO | | fraserhannah0