HTTPS Migration & Preserving Link Equity
-
Hey All — I’m working with a site that is migrating to HTTPS and had a couple questions. I read Moz’s ‘SEO Tips & Tricks for HTTPS’ post but want some clarification on a couple items. Aside from using https canonicals...
1. What is the best way to preserve link equity from inbound links? Site wide 301 Redirect in .htacess?
2. What is the best way to redirect internal links from http to https? The site uses absolute internal links.
THX!
-
Logan is correct, whenever you use a 301 redirect from one page on your domain to the same domain the link equity is passed (all of it, 100 percent). So, migrating from http to https isn't going to hurt at all. You won't lose any link equity.
I still prefer to updated any links on other sites whenever I can, such as links from social media profiles, etc. and any other links I can get updated.
-
Hi Joe,
Specifically addressing your first question, 301 redirects that take URLs to HTTPS won't cause any loss in link juice as they would with a typical 301 redirect. This information came out of a Q&A with Mueller, which you can read more of here.
For your second question, that largely depends on your server, but you should be able to do this with a single rule, as opposed to redirects on a one-to-one basis.
-
Hi Joe,
I'm sharing all the SEO checklist for https migration. I'm highlighting two points that you have asked.
SEO checklist to preserve your rankings
-
Make sure every element of your website uses HTTPS, including widgets, java script, CSS files, images and your content delivery network.
-
Use 301 redirects to point all HTTP URLs to HTTPS. This is a no-brainer to most SEOs, but you'd be surprised how often a 302 (temporary) redirect finds its way to the homepage by accident
-
Make sure all canonical tags point to the HTTPS version of the URL.
-
Use relative URLs whenever possible.
-
Rewrite hard-coded internal links (as many as is possible) to point to HTTPS. This is superior to pointing to the HTTP version and relying on 301 redirects.
-
Register the HTTPS version in both Google and Bing Webmaster Tools.
-
Use the Fetch and Render function in Webmaster Tools to ensure Google can properly crawl and render your site.
-
Update your sitemaps to reflect the new URLs. Submit the new sitemaps to Webmaster Tools. Leave your old (HTTP) sitemaps in place for 30 days so search engines can crawl and "process" your 301 redirects.
-
Update your robots.txt file. Add your new sitemaps to the file. Make sure your robots.txt doesn't block any important pages.
-
If necessary, update your analytics tracking code. Most modern Google Analytics tracking snippets already handle HTTPS, but older code may need a second look.
-
Implement HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS). This response header tells user agents to only access HTTPS pages even when directed to an HTTP page. This eliminates redirects, speeds up response time, and provides extra security.
-
If you have a disavow file, be sure to transfer over any disavowed URLs into a duplicate file in your new Webmaster Tools profile.
Thanks
-
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
-
No PA and no DA and no back links.
Hello Friends, I am having some problem in my website. I hosted this before 4 months. I have done some seo work related to back links. But when I see in opensiteexplorer than it does not show any back links even It shows 1 DA and 1 PA but why?
Technical SEO | | docbeans0 -
Do Sitespect links get indexed?
I put a link on one of my websites using sitespect because the next release is not for a few weeks. The reason for the link is to pass domain authority (SEO Juice) to the linked site. In my next release I will add the link in the actual code, but am hoping that from now till then google will crawl and index this link. So the question is, will google crawl and index links adding to webpages via sitespect? Here is the code: | * [http://www.](<a class=)yourdomain.com" class="" >YourDomain |
Technical SEO | | AlyssaN
| | | Link to Sitespect: http://www.sitespect.com/0 -
Https indexed...how?
Hello Moz, Since a while i am struggling with a SEO case: At the moment a https version of a homepage of a client of us is indexed in Google. Thats really strange because the url is redirected to an other website url for three weeks now. And we did everything to make clear to google that he has to index the other url.
Technical SEO | | Searchresult
So we have a few homepage urls A https://www.website.nl
B https://www.websites.nl/category
C http://www.websites.nl/category What we did: Redirected A with a 301 to B, a redirect from A or B to C is difficult because of the security issue with the ssl certificate. We put the right canonical url (VERSION C) on every version of the homepage(A,B) We only put the canonical urls in the sitemap.xml, only version C and uploaded it to Google Webmastertools We changed all important internal links to Version C We also get some valuable external backlinks to Version C Is there something i missed or i forget to say to Google hey look you've got the wrong url indexed, you have to index version C? How is it possible Google still prefers Version A after doing al those changes three weeks a go? I'am really looking forward to your answer. Thanks a lot in advanced! Greetz Djacko0 -
How do you perform your link audits?
What methods and tools do you guys use to perform link audits? Do you also use a traffic light system for links?
Technical SEO | | PurpleGriffon0 -
302 Redirects & WordPress
Hi Mozzers- We started a WordPress blog for one of my clients to help improve the domain authority, increase visits, etc. a few months ago. I ran a crawl report a few days ago and noticed that the /trackback/ pages are getting redirected to the appropriate page using a 302 redirect not a 301 redirect. I've search through the forum looking for other similar questions and found one. The answer suggested that I use the TAC plugin and check for any malicious code. I did this and found nothing. Another response suggested using the Redirection plugin. I haven't tried this yet. Has anyone encountered this and if so, how did you deal with it. Thank you! LHC
Technical SEO | | lhc670 -
Is blogger could for building links
Hi i would like to know if blogger through google is a good way to build links and traffic. I have started to use blogger and would like to know if i am wasting my time using it for link building and traffic building for my main site
Technical SEO | | ClaireH-1848860 -
What loss of value would this link experience?
What loss of value would this link experience? If the link is actually a link to the from site that is 301'd to your site like this example below: i.e., www.domain.com/29834?=www.yourdomain.com My thought is that simply because you're going through a redirect (In this case a 301) you will lose slight value there. But I'd love to hear your thoughts and reasoning on any other affects if any (direct or indirect) you think it may have.
Technical SEO | | Webfor1 -
SEO LINKS
New to S.E.O. so excuse my naivety. I have made lots of new links some of them paid for e.g. Best of the Web but I don’t see any change in the latest competitive link analysis. Some of the links we have been accepted for just do not show. Also the keywords we are trying to promote the most have disappeared off the radar for over 2 weeks now. I think we have followed the optimization suggestions correctly. Please could you enlighten me. Regards Paul www.curtainpolesemporium.co.uk
Technical SEO | | CPE0