Https Version of Homepage in SERPS
-
The https version of our homepage appears in Google's SERPs. We have rel canonical on the page pointing to the http version. We have a redirect in our htaccess that sends https to http.
I thought this was just a fluke and it would be fixed by the next crawl, but it's been like this for a few weeks now. Not only that, but we're losing rank a bit and I'm afraid there's a correlation.
Has this ever happened to anyone?
-
Thanks for the code. It worked! And thanks for providing the link to the server header check so I could properly test it.
-
Hi Marisa,
I'm no .htaccess expert, but that code looks a little wonky to me. Is it complete? I see lots of rewrite conditions, but not rewrite rules.
Second problem, when I run the https version through a server header check, it looks like the redirect serves a 302 status code, which indicates a temporary move and passes no link juice. Oh no!
So the first thing I would do is to make sure that any Rewrite rules in your htaccess file contain a 301 directive like this: [R=301,L]
For Example, the following might work:
<code>RewriteEngine On RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !^on$ RewriteRule (.*) http://yourdomain/$1 [R=301,L]</code>
So the first thing I would do is to make sure that any Rewrite rules in your htaccess file contain a 301 directive like this: [R=301,L]
Another option to consider is making your entire site secure to https. Many websites are moving this way, and Google has no problem crawling and ranking these sites appropriately. The important thing is to make sure you act consistently, and get those 302's solved!
It is odd that you have proper canonical tags and Google still displays the https version, but after you get this sorted out things will likely resolve themselves.
Hope this helps. Best of luck with your SEO!
-
Hi Marisa, glad you were able to get the redirect set back up. Hopefully someone can help you with this secondary issue. htaccess can be pretty complex!
Sorry I couldn't be of more help in that area.
-
The redirect is back now (don't know what happened) but now when I click on the order page, which is supposed to be https, it redirects it to http even though I have the following code in the htaccess:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/order.html
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/cgi-bin/order.cgi -
I am referring to the one in my profile. I will check that out and get back to you. Thanks.
-
Hi Marisa,
I had to dig, but is the site you are speaking about the one in your profile? When I check the header status of the https page I get a 200, meaning the 301 isn't being recognized. If you are referring to a different site please disregard.
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
-
Migrating website to new CMS and to https://
Hi, We are migrating an old website to a new one built in Wordpress soon. We also added an SSL to change to https:// Most of the url's stay the same. Can we just migrate from http to https on server level, and for the url's that do change just set a 301 redirect? Or are there other things we should take into account?
Technical SEO | | Mat_C0 -
Proper 301 redirect code for http to https
I see lots of suggestions on the web for forwarding http to https. I've got several existing sites that want to take advantage of the SSL boost for SEO (however slight) and I don't want to lose SEO placements in the process. I can force all pages to be viewed through the SSL - that's no problem. But for SEO reasons, do I need to do a 301 redirect line of code for every page in the site to the new "https" version? Or is there a way to catch all with one line of code that Google, etc. will recognize & honor?
Technical SEO | | wcksmith10 -
Do you still loose 15% of value of inbound links when you redirect your site from http to https (so all inbound links to http are being redirected to https version)?
I know when you redesign your on website, you loose about 15% internally due to the 301 redirects (see moz article: https://moz.com/blog/accidental-seo-tests-how-301-redirects-are-likely-impacting-your-brand), but I'm wondering if that also applies to value of inbound links when you redirect your http://www.sitename.com to https://www.sitename.com. I appreciate your help!
Technical SEO | | JBMediaGroup0 -
Should I redirect desktop users visiting mobile page to desktop version?
So I am redirecting mobile users to mobile version of the page and also have alternate attrubute set up for that: What about the opposite case? When user from desktop computer visits mobile version of the page. Should I redirect him back to desktop version?
Technical SEO | | poiseo1 -
Use target keyword on several page titles or homepage only?
If I want my homepage to rank for a keyword (ie "red widgets"), does it support or dilute the homepage's rank if I use the keyword on other pages? I can see it working either way: The search engine looks at your site, sees that the target keyword is used throughout the site, and ranks the site higher as a result. Using the keyword on several pages makes it so none of them stand out, and ultimately it's harder to rank highly. Thoughts?
Technical SEO | | Kyle_M0 -
How to achieve product extensions in organic serps
I have noticed some interesting changes in how google are returning searches for specific branded products. In this case 'tom ford glasses' position 12 result has three product extensions (see image) This is similar to the product extensions which occasionally occur on adwords. Have you seen this happen and if so any ideas how it all works? TR3nz
Technical SEO | | seanmccauley0 -
I have a site that has both http:// and https:// versions indexed, e.g. https://www.homepage.com/ and http://www.homepage.com/. How do I de-index the https// versions without losing the link juice that is going to the https://homepage.com/ pages?
I can't 301 https// to http:// since there are some form pages that need to be https:// The site has 20,000 + pages so individually 301ing each page would be a nightmare. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Technical SEO | | fthead90 -
Https indexed - though a no index no follow tag has been added
Hi, The https-pages of our booking section are being indexed by Google. We added But the pages are still being indexed. What can I do to exclude these URL's from the Google index? Thank you very much in advance! Kind regards, Dennis Overbeek ACSI Publishing | dennis@acsi.eu
Technical SEO | | SEO_ACSI0