Issues with Google Search Console and rekeyed SSL certificate
-
Hi,
Another newbie question please. I've recently changed the name of my business so bought a new domain and rekeyed the SSL certificate to the new domain.
Let's say the old domain was called https://123.com and the new one is https://abc.com.
I've set up a 301 redirect on 123.com to forward to abc.com and I've added the new domain to Google Search Console and verified it, however can't seem to use the Change of Address tool to move from the old domain to the new domain.
I think its because my preferred property (https://123.com) technically no longer exists since I rekeyed the SSL certificate from the old site to the new one so the old site no longer has an SSL certificate. When I go to the old https domain it doesn't load, nor does it seem to forward to the new site. It just times out.
Am I correct in assuming that since I rekeyed the SSL certificate, that my original preferred property on Google (https://123.com) no longer exists?
And if so, is there a way to use the Change of Address tool or do I simply need to remove the old site from Google and go through a period where my (new) site builds it's ranking from scratch?
Thanks in advance folks!
-
Good luck! Happy to help
-
Thanks Robin,
That's as I suspected. I'll see if I can grab a cheap SSL for the old site somewhere to see if I can rectify the situation.
Thanks for your help!
Mike.
-
HI resourcerep, it's great that you're asking questions on the community.
Have you been using this help article? I'm just going to check some assumptions here:
- Have you set up a search console property for the new site so you can select it during the site move operation?
- What errors (if any) do you get from search console?
- What happens when you try to access the old pages, do you just get a warning?
It sounds like the SSL cert is the issue. Unfortunately due to the way HTTPS works it needs a SSL certificate before you can send and receive data.
However, you could find the cheapest SSL cert you can buy, and put that on the old page to allow the redirect to work. To be honest that'll be valuable for more than just this, as having working 301s will help both searcg crawlers and users trying to access the old site.
Hope that helps!
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
-
Search Console Errors 400 and 405
Hi, Does anyone know if search console errors showing as follows are damaging to serps: /xmlrpc.php is returning 405 error /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php is returning 400 error These errors seem to of coincided almost to the day that there was a ranking drop for the primary keyword from mid page 1 to bottom of page 2. No matter what I do I cannot seem to correct these errors. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks
Technical SEO | | DaleZon0 -
Errors In Search Console
Hi All, I am hoping someone might be able to help with this. Last week one of my sites dropped from mid first day to bottom of page 1. We had not been link building as such and it only seems to of affected a single search term and the ranking page (which happens to be the home page). When I was going through everything I went to search console and in crawl errors there are 2 errors that showed up as detected 3 days before the drop. These are: wp-admin/admin-ajax.php showing as response code 400 and also xmlrpc.php showing as response code 405 robots.txt is as follows: user-agent: * disallow: /wp-admin/ allow: /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php Any help with what is wrong here and how to fix it would be greatly appreciated. Many Thanks
Technical SEO | | DaleZon0 -
Webmaster tools not showing links but Moz OSE is showing links. Why can't I see them in the Google Search Console
Hi, Please see attached photos. I have a website that shows external follow links when performing a search on open site explorer. However, they are not recognised or visible in search console. This is the case for both internal and external links. The internal links are 'no follow' which I am getting developer to rectify. Any ideas why I cant see the 'follow' external links? Thanks in advance to those who help me out. Jesse T7dkL5s T7dkL5s OkQmPL4 3qILHqS
Technical SEO | | jessew0 -
SSL redirect issue
Hi guys, I have a site that has some internal pages with SSL. Recently i noticed that if i put https://mydomain.com, this URL is accessible but all the design is messed up. My site is on wordpress and i use "redirection" plugin for all the 301 redirect. So i decided to add a new 301 redirect from https://mydomain.com to my actual URL version of home page http://mydomain.com. After doing that, my home page doesn't load at all. Does anybody know what happens? Thank you for advice!
Technical SEO | | odmsoft0 -
Google Custom Site Search
I am an admin on a google custom site search account. I am also the owner of a verified webmaster tools account for the same site. The Custom Search control panel will not let me add URL's or a Site map for on demand indexing, but says "you must submit a sitemap of your own verified sites". Has anyone else has this issue? Does the Owner of the custom search account have to be the owner of the webmaster account, or can the logged in admin be? Thanks
Technical SEO | | SEMPassion0 -
My site cannot be found by google at all
I don't know why but our company site can not be found by google at all. I have submitted to google webmaster, have social media point to, etc, Is there any reason for this? url for our website is www.bistosamerica.com Thank you
Technical SEO | | BistosAmerica0 -
Website Ranking Issue
Hi, We have been performing our own onsite of offsite SEO along with external assistance and have ranked well over the years with minimal impact from Google updates. Howevr the last so called Panda update has affected us heavily pushing our main phrase 'web design melbourne' from 2nd to 7th where we have been for almost 2 months now on Google.com.au irrespective of onsite or offsite work. We have been trying to find signs of any onsite, IP, duplicate content, titles or other issues that may be holding us back to no avail. The only flag that Google webmaster tools is showing is a number of bad internal site links, which I think is a glitch with the CMS we are using. Even the SEO MOZ tool gives us a higher ranking compared to most competitors on page 1 of Google.com.au for our main phrase. The biggest difference between us and competitors is we chose to target an internal page specific to the topic rather than our homepage. With this sadi we have also reduced our keyword density and content quantity inline with the other sites homepages. Can anyone help shed some light on this? and perhaps something obvious that we have missed, or where we should be looking? Thanks.
Technical SEO | | paulsid0