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
-
Why Dropping pages from SERPS?
Our website for my olansi company in London, China has hundreds of pages dedicated to every service we provide to China local areas. The total number of pages is approximately 100. Google caters pretty well for long-tail searches when it indexes all these pages, so we usually get a fair amount of traffic when this happens. However, Google occasionally drops most of our indexed pages from search engine results for a few days or weeks at a time - for example, Google is currently indexing 60 pages while last week it was back at 100. Can you tell me why this happens? When these pages don't display, we lose a lot of organic traffic. What are we doing wrong? Site url:https://www.olanside.com
Technical SEO | | sesahoda0 -
Google Serps Not Showing HTTPS in Front of URL
Hi Everyone, We implemented the HTTPS change to our four websites about 6 months ago. I have found something that I feel is strange. The homepage of each website shows www.domain.com, but all the internal pages show https://www.domain.com/page. If you click through it shows it as secure, but I feel that because it is happening on all four websites, that something was done incorrectly. Here is one Google SERP: https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1&biw=1920&bih=947&ei=gq9GWpizBuuF_Qa_p5e4Bw&q=tanzanite+jewelry+designs&oq=tanzanite+jewelry+designs&gs_l=psy-ab.3..0l2.130446.136028.0.136152.29.17.4.7.9.0.207.2214.7j9j1.17.0....0...1c.1.64.psy-ab..1.28.2350...0i131k1j0i22i30k1.0.BA5-meGmuA0 As you can see, our site displays with no https, but all the internal pages do. It just worries me as I have seen our internal pages increasing in positioning, but not our homepage. Any ideas?
Technical SEO | | vetofunk0 -
Amp version of website
Hello & thanks for reading its maybe the monday morning blues but i have two versions of a website - www.gardeners.scot and www.gardeners.scot/AMP/ the pages on the amp version have canonicals pointing to the "normal" website Should the links on "www.example.com/AMP/" point to the amp website or the normal website? what are your thougths?
Technical SEO | | livingphilosophy0 -
What is the best way to deal with https?
Currently, the site I am working on is using HTTPS throughout the website. The non-HTTPS pages are redirected through a 301 redirect to the HTTPS- this happens for all pages. Is this the best strategy going forward? if not, what changes would you suggest?
Technical SEO | | adarsh880 -
Using same IP for differenct country TLD versions
Hi Will having a websites in several languages hosted on the same IP be a problem SEO wise if they are using different country TLD's? In this case shopdomain.de, at and co.uk on the exact same server IP
Technical SEO | | AndersDK0 -
What if I point my canonicals to a URL version that is not used in internal links
My web developer has pointed the "good" URLs that I use in my internal link structure (top-nav/footer) to another duplicate version of my pages. Now the URLs that receive all the canonical link value are not the ones I use on my website. is this a problem and why??? In theory the implementation is good because both have equal content. But does it harm my link equity if it directs to a URL which is not included in my internal link architecture.
Technical SEO | | DeptAgency0 -
302 Redirect from HTTP to HTTPS
Hi Guys One of our client's website is having 586 linking unique domains to http://www.XYZ.com.au (to home page only). They have migrated their site to https://www.XYZ.com.au so all of their site pages are on HTTPS now instead of HTTP. The HTTP version of the home page is 302 redirected to HTTPS therefore we think they are not getting all the link juice of 586 linking domains and would like to recommend to change their 302 to 301. However we have not seen any ranking drop due to this migration and redirect in place. The new HTTPS site/redirect is live from last 2 months now. So not sure its worth recommending 301 or not? Does this mean Google is picking up this 302 redirect as normal and attributing all link value to HTTPS version? Please can anyone share their thoughts on recent Google interpretation of 302 from HTTP to HTTPS? Thanks
Technical SEO | | JamesDixon700 -
Blocking https from being crawled
I have an ecommerce site where https is being crawled for some pages. Wondering if the below solution will fix the issue www.example.com will be my domain In the nav there is a login page www.example.com/login which is redirecting to the https://www.example.com/login If I just disallowed /login in the robots file wouldn't it not follow the redirect and index that stuff? The redirect part is what I am questioning.
Technical SEO | | Sean_Dawes0