Another http vs https Question?
-
Is it better to keep the Transaction/ Payment pages on a commercial website as the only secure ones (https) and remainder of website as http?
Or is it better to have all the commercial website as secure (https)?
-
I really appreciate your help. This information will definitly help me to keep my site all throughut as https the same way I wanted it to be from the beginning.
You are the Best.
S.H
-
No problem - you could place canonical tags on all the http:// pages to the https:// -
have a look at this guide from SeoMoz -
http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/canonicalization
I think you should also give this recent Q&A a read as it is very informative in regards to what you are looking at -
http://www.seomoz.org/q/duplicate-content-and-http-and-https
Hope this helps
-
Wow, thank you so much for your response. It attracted my attention to new points. Is there a way to keep the site entirely as https and avoid the duplicate content issue?
I am fairly new to SEO.
I am struggling with a solution for this website which is Drupal based as I am finding it not that easy to work with from SEO point.
Again thank you so muh.
S.H
-
Hi,
Thanks for your response. The thing I had the website set as such as Http with Https oertaining to transactions only but had problems in a warning appearing on logging to website indicating that some contents of pages have insecure informtion withan option to logon anyway. This has been turning visitors away.
I however realize that I have a duplicate content issue with website being as https at the moment. I am just trying to reach a solution whereby visitors feel safe purchasing from a new website that offers quite diverse service at better price than the other competitors who are major market players.
Thanks.
S.H
-
From what I understand, login boxes usually wait to be logged in to activate HTTPS. And as for social media accounts, aren't the social media sharing and links sent to the social network? Like Twitter usually goes to API of twitter's site, which is usually HTTPS.
-
Hi,
The thing is that I have the login box on all pages of that website to allow access for purchase of Products that are quite diverse and also toenter to website's social media accounts.
That is what had led me to have it https throughout whole site
Thanks.
S.H
-
From my experience, if you are an eCommerce site, it is usually best to have https with account or checkout pages.
If you are a banking or payment processing site, it is best to have https throughout the site to offer confidence to users.
So...
eCommerce = Only in checkout/payment pages or account info.
Sensitive sites, like banking or financials = throughout the whole site.
-
This is a good question, I would consider going down the route of making your transactional/payment pages https and then anything else http - anywhere your customers have to enter their sensitive data should be https. The one thing to remember with https is that it potentially causes duplicate content from a search engine point of view:
http://www.seomoz.org/q/duplicate-content-and-http-and-https
Have a look at this interesting article in relation to https and why everyone isn't using it:
http://arstechnica.com/business/2011/03/https-is-more-secure-so-why-isnt-the-web-using-it/
Remember more importance has been placed on page load times since Panda so people are looking to shave every ounce of time they can in relation to load times, this also improves user experience.
I hope this has helps give you some more insight into HTTPs and whether it would be best for your site to be all this protocol or just part of it.
-
As long as the pages that users enter any type of private / secure information is SSL (https), than you're fine. Alternatively if you want to have your entire site https, that’s fine also.
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
-
WWW vs Non WWW for EXISTING site.
This one has sort of been asked already but I cannot find an answer. When we evaluate a new SEO client, previously with Majestic we would review the root domain vs sub domain (www) for which had the higher Trust Flow and Citation flow, and if there was a major difference, adjust the Google indexed domain to the higher peforming one. Is there a way to do this with Moz, Domain Authority, and Sub Domain authority are always returning the same DA for me. Thanks in advance.
Technical SEO | | practiceedge10 -
301 redirect file question
Hi Everyone, I am creating a list of 301 redirects to give to a developer to put into Magento. I used Screaming Frog to crawl the site, but I have noticed that all of their urls 302 to another page. I am wondering if I should 301 the first URL to the url on the new site, or the second. I am thinking the first, but would love some confirmation. Thank you!
Technical SEO | | mrbobland0 -
MOving from one page format to another
I have a page that I optimized for a valuable keyword (at least it is to me!) and it gets very good traffic. Problem is that the page needs to constantly updated with new "news" related to the topic area. I have developed a page-type that will have the same static content as the original page, but it will now automtaically index related content from the rest of the site so the "news" section stay fresh and up-to-date. I am now okay to do something like permanently redirect that page to the newly built one? I have also run the newly designed page through tests on Moz and it receives on receives an A-grade from the on-page optimization tool. I am just wanting to ensure I cover all bases, because I do not want to risk losing the top search result and all that valuable traffic.
Technical SEO | | kevgrand0 -
Duplicate Content Question
I have a client that operates a local service-based business. They are thinking of expanding that business to another geographic area (a drive several hours away in an affluent summer vacation area). The name of the existing business contains the name of the city, so it would not be well-suited to market 'City X' business in 'City Y'. My initial thought was to (for the most part) 'duplicate' the existing site onto a new site (brand new root domain). Much of the content would be the exact same. We could re-word some things so there aren't entire lengthy paragraphs of identical info, but it seems pointless to completely reinvent the wheel. We'll get as creative as possible, but certain things just wouldn't change. This seems like the most pragmatic thing to do given their goals, but I'm worried about duplicate content. It doesn't feel as though this is spammy though, so I'm not sure if there's cause for concern.
Technical SEO | | stevefidelity0 -
Content development for improving organic SEO Questions
I have a real estate web site at www.nhfinehomes.com. The site is build on a Windows Server running ASP.NET with a basic, home grown CMS. In my Google Analytic under Traffic Sources, Search Engine Optimization, Queries I see a list of over 1,000 keyword phrases that my site had ranked for. In an effort to improve these rankings, I am under the assumption that if I create original content for these terms and add it to my site, it could help improve ranks? First question, is this a valid strategy worth pursuing assuming the content is good, I use good internal linking practices and make sure not to 'orphan' these pages? Second, because my current site technology doesn't really make it easy to add content, I have figured out how to install a WordPress blog at www.nhfinehomes.com/blog (currently not up since the MySQL DB died for some reason) So am I at any disadvantage adding all this content to /blog vs. right on the primary CMS? Obviously the WordPress template is not the same as the main pages so primary nav and footer nav differ. Of course I can cross link between the two but wanted to make sure this was not going to penalize the value of this content. Third, if there is anyone with Windows/.NET optimization experience at the server and site architecture level and can help me give my site a once over, I would be most appreciative. I'm not the programmer and rely and a friend to help with that and his SEO experience is very limited. Thanks in advance.
Technical SEO | | LinkMoser0 -
Redirection plugin: wordpress vs apache module?
Hi, Any one familiar with the wordpress plugin 'redirection' Are there any SEO benefits of having the plugin write the 301 redirects into the .htaccess? The standard mode does not use .htaccess but has wordpress genertae the 301s Thanks
Technical SEO | | Justin10 -
Hosting sitemap on another server
I was looking into XML sitemap generators and one that seems to be recommended quite a bit on the forums is the xml-sitemaps.com They have a few versions though. I'll need more than 500 pages indexed, so it is just a case of whether I go for their paid for version and install on our server or go for their pro-sitemaps.com offering. For the pro-sitemaps.com they say: "We host your sitemap files on our server and ping search engines automatically" My question is will this be less effective than my installing it on our server from an SEO perspective because it is no longer on our root domain?
Technical SEO | | design_man0 -
Duplicate content and http and https
Within my Moz crawl report, I have a ton of duplicate content caused by identical pages due to identical pages of http and https URL's. For example: http://www.bigcompany.com/accomodations https://www.bigcompany.com/accomodations The strange thing is that 99% of these URL's are not sensitive in nature and do not require any security features. No credit card information, booking, or carts. The web developer cannot explain where these extra URL's came from or provide any further information. Advice or suggestions are welcome! How do I solve this issue? THANKS MOZZERS
Technical SEO | | hawkvt10