Https Homepage Redirect & Issue with Googlebot Access
-
Hi All,
I have a question about Google correctly accessing a site that has a 301 redirect to https on the homepage. Here’s an overview of the situation and I’d really appreciate any insight from the community on what the issue might be:
Background Info:
My homepage is set up as a 301 redirect to a https version of the homepage (some users log in so we need the SSL). Only 2 pages on the site are under SSL and the rest of the site is http.We switched to the SSL in July but have not seen any change in our rankings despite efforts increasing backlinks and out put of content.
Even though Google has indexed the SSL page of the site, it appears that it is not linking up the SSL page with the rest of the site in its search and tracking. Why do we think this is the case?
The Diagnosis:
1) When we do a Google Fetch on our http homepage, it appears that Google is only reading the 301 redirect instructions (as shown below) and is not finding its way over to the SSL page which has all the correct Page Title and meta information.
<code>HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently Date: Fri, 08 Nov 2013 17:26:24 GMT Server: Apache/2.2.16 (Debian) Location: https://mysite.com/ Vary: Accept-Encoding Content-Encoding: gzip Content-Length: 242 Keep-Alive: timeout=15, max=100 Connection: Keep-Alive Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1 <title>301 Moved Permanently</title> # Moved Permanently The document has moved [here](https://mysite.com/). * * * <address>Apache/2.2.16 (Debian) Server at mysite.com</address></code>
2) When we view a list of external backlinks to our homepage, it appears that the backlinks that have been built after we switched to the SSL homepage have been separated from the backlinks built before the SSL.
Even on Open Site, we are only seeing the backlinks that were achieved before we switched to the SSL and not getting to track any backlinks that have been added after the SSL switch. This leads up to believe that the new links are not adding any value to our search rankings.
3) When viewing Google Webmaster, we are receiving no information about our homepage, only all the non-https pages. I added a https account to Google Webmaster and in that version we ONLY receive the information about our homepage (and the other ssl page on the site)
What Is The Problem?
My concern is that we need to do something specific with our sitemap or with the 301 redirect itself in order for Google to read the whole site as one entity and receive the reporting/backlinks as one site.
Again, google is indexing all of our pages but it seems to be doing so in a disjointed way that is breaking down link juice and value being built up by our SSL homepage.
Can anybody help? Thank you for any advice input you might be able to offer.
-Greg
-
Thanks for taking a look anyway Chris.
Does anybody else have any suggestions on what might be going on here?
Cheers,
Greg
-
That appears normal. Sorry, I can't be of any help on this.
-
Hey Chris,
Yeah - not sure why it ended up being displayed like that. Here's a screen shot of it again (this is the Google Fetch result that we receive when we Google Fetch on our http homepage - in our main webmaster account): http://tinypic.com/r/2vnkz9h/5
-
That's a weird looking redirect--I wouldn't expect to see any html in the server headers . It kind of looks like the data you provided its being take from information directly on the page verses being provided by the server. Are you sure your redirect is set up correctly on the server?
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
-
Multistore 302 Redirects
I noticed that every link on my site is being flagged up as a 302 temp redirect in Moz. The reason is because we have a multi store and use GeoIP to redirect anyone coming from their respective country. I'm guessing a 302 is the wrong way to do this - can anyone shed advice on the best practice for redirecting customers to geo-specific stores?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | moon-boots0 -
Help with force redirect HTTP to HTTPS
Hi, I'm unsure of where I should be putting the following code for one of my Wordpress websites so that they redirect all HTTP requests to HTTPS. RewriteEngine On RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !=on RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301] This is my current htaccess file: *missing
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Easigrass0 -
Redirect 301 still works?
Hi, yesterday a friend said that 301 redirects does not transfer your page rank or domain autorithy anymore. I could'nt find anything in internet saying it, but I decided to ask you guys, since I think you are very reliable. so, 301 redirects wroks for transfer page rank, and i can create better domains and transfer everything, or this strategy is gone forever now?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | chablau0 -
Site duplication issue....
Hi All, I have a client who has duplicated an entire section of their site onto another domain about 1 year ago. The new domain was ranking well but was hit heavily back in March by Panda. I have to say the set up isn't great and the solution I'm proposing isn't ideal, however, as an agency we have only been tasked with "performing SEO" on the new domain. Here is an illustration of the problem: http://i.imgur.com/Mfh8SLN.jpg My solution to the issue is to 301 redirect the duplicated area of the original site out (around 150 pages) to the new domain name, but I'm worried that this could be could cause a problem as I know you have to be careful with redirecting internal pages to external when it comes to SEO. The other issue I have is that the client would like to retain the menu structure on the main site, but I do not want to be putting an external link in the main navigation so my proposed solution is as follows: Implement 301 redirects for URLs from original domain to new domain Remove link out to this section from the main navigation of original site and add a boiler plate link in another area of the template for "Visit xxx for our xxx products" kind of link to the other site. Illustration of this can be found here: http://i.imgur.com/CY0ZfHS.jpg I'm sure the best solution would be to redirect in URLs from the new domain into the original site and keep all sections within the one domain and optimise the one site. My hands are somewhat tied on this one but I just wanted clarification or advice on the solution I've proposed, and that it wont dramatically affect the standing of the current sites.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MiroAsh0 -
301 Redirecting an Entire Site
I have a question which has had me thinking for hours..... If SITE A is ranking well on a number of search phrases and you 301 that site to another (SITE B). The site will change on the Google SERPs to the site which you've re-directed to... In this case SITE B. But how do you maintain the rankings of SITE A?. Do you keep the rankings of SITE A forever? Or will your rankings of SITE A (now SITE B) gradually slip as other sites rank higher? As you can no longer edit SITE A does Google take into consideration the content on SITE B and no longer take anything that SITE A had to offer into consideration? SITE B has simply replaced it in the SERPs??...... Please can anybody help? Thanks,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | karl620 -
Cannot 301 redirect, alternatives?
Hi, the company has changed it's name so now under a different domain. All pages have been 301 redirected on a 1:1 basis apart from the home page. For some reason IT cannot 301 redirect the old home page to the new website home page. At suggestions? Perhaps canonical it? Meantime the old home page copy has been changed to say the company name has changed and a link to the new website. Any help greatly appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Richard5550 -
301 redirects.
Hi everyone, I am having some issues with an a few dynamic URLs that are not redirecting; Example: http://www.example.com/shop-online?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage_images.tpl&product_id=69164&category_id=303 I first tried to carry out a standard 301 which looked like this; Redirect 301 /longurlwith&category_id=303 http://www.example.com/new-url Which didn't work. After a little bit of research I added the following into the htaccess file; RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.example.com$ [NC]RewriteRule ^/shop-online$(.*)$ http://www.example.com/shop-online$ [NE,L,R=301] Which caused the website to error 500 (Not cool). So now I am stumped. Any help would be really appreciated as I'm sure it's an easy fix but I can't quite my finger on it. Thanks in advance :).
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AduroLabs0 -
Duplicate Title Tags & Duplication Meta Description after 301 Redirect
Today, I was checking my Google webmaster tools and found 16,000 duplicate title tags and duplicate meta description. I have investigate for this issue and come to know about as follow. I have changed URL structure for 11,000 product pages on 3rd July, 2012 and set up 301 redirect from old product pages to new product pages. Google have started to crawl my new product pages but, De-Indexing of old URLs are quite slower. That's why I found this issue on Google webmaster tools. Can anyone suggest me, How can I increase ratio of De-Indexing for old URLs? OR any other suggestions? How much time Google will take to De-Index old URLs from web search?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CommercePundit0