Can converting a site to HTTPS impact ranking?
-
We have a client with a very large site that would like to put a login on each page; however, that would require the entire site be put behind a secure connection (changing http:// to https:// on every page). They rank for a ton of keywords and rank well. Would the change impact their rankings at all? Could it possibly help them?
-
Hi Cyrus,
No - all the content will still be visible. We just want to migrate to https. Thanks for the advice!
-
Not at all, Martin! They just didn't answer the original question of whether or not there would be an impact.
-
Thanks for adding that Cyrus... I have to say I was assuming Douglas wasn't hiding the actual content, but that was an assumption, so I'm glad you checked.
-
Hi Douglas,
Martin has some good points on how to implement the migration to https, but I want to make sure that you're only adding a login on each page, and not putting your content behind the login. You're content is visible even if a user is logged out, right?
If it's just a form, then you're okay. You might lose a little link juice via 301 redirects, but in general you'll be fine.
On the other hand, if you require a login to your content, this is a really bad idea.Search robots don't fill out login forms. When they get to one, they stop. There are no more links at this point for them to crawl. This can and does create severe crawling and indexing for websites that employ this technique.
Otherwise, if you follow Martins advice you should come out quite alright. Once you implement the 301s, I might leave the old sitemap in place for awhile (and submit both to the major search engines) so that Google can process the 301s.
Hope this helps. Best of luck with your SEO!
-
Hi Doug,
And I did not presume you could or couldn't do those things, but I didn't word my post in a way that was condescending...explaining things step by step is not always appropriate because I would rather presume knowledge on a forum like SEOmoz than presume ignorance.
So, I hope you were not too offended by my presumption of knowledge.
That being said would you like me to explain what to do to achieve the above points? I am more than happy to do so, by the way.
- On the volume of links - if it is a large-scale issue then another solution would be to have a non-SSL version home page, but on login they are taken to a different SSL 'member welcome' or 'dashboard' sort of page. That way you can retain the link value to the non-SSL version while providing the necessary security over the logged-in functionality.
- On the question of non-SSL links to SSL page ... any extra 'diversion' required between a link and its target has, in my experience, the propensity to reduce that link's effectiveness. even the effects of 301's diminish over time because the presumption is that the page you are 301-ing to is the correct 'new' one and is therefore more relevant, which is why I initially suggested getting links 'fixed'. As your initial post did not suggest the scale of links I could not have replied in a more precise way.
So I do suggest you consider implementing the first bullet point above as a good compromise and will retain the value of your links but permits the SSL implementation as well.
Let me know if I can help further or if you need more things explaining so that you know how to go about doing some of the things suggested. Thanks.
-
Hmmm... of course if I could do all of those things, I probably wouldn't have asked the question. Sarcasm aside, there are tens of thousands of links external to the site, many of them on very high authority sites that will not update their links.
Are you saying that a non-SSL link to an SSL page will actually diminish the backlink's weight?
Doug
-
Right, one of our clients fits this bill exactly. So here goes:-
- Do a 301 redirect of all impacted URLs in the .htaccess or web.config file (depending on the type of server)
- Ensure the sitemap.xml contains the HTTPS versions only.
- Find out who's linking to your pages and using the HTTP and ask them to update the link to https
- Do a double check of all internal links (which should have relative paths anyway) and make sure none refer to HTTP
If you do it well it shouldn't negatively impact it at all. Positive? Well, depends on the competition I suppose, having a HTTPS shows care for your community and providing a secure service is a good thing, but I wouldn't expect much of a nudge based on this alone.
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
-
301 redirecting a site that currently links to the target site
I have a personal blog that has a good amount of back links pointing at it from high quality relevant authoritative sites in my niche. I also run a company in the same niche. I link to a page on the company site from the personal blog article that has bunch of relevant links pointing at it (as it's highly relevant to the content on the personal blog). Overview: Relevant personal blog post has a bunch of relevant external links pointing at it (completely organic). Relevant personal blog post then links (externally) to relevant company site page and is helping that page rank. Question: If I do the work to 301 the personal blog to the company site, and then link internally from the blog page to the other relevant company page, will this kill that back link or will the internal link help as much as the current external link does currently? **For clarity: ** External sites => External blog => External link to company page VS External sites => External blog 301 => Blog page (now on company blog) => Internal link to target page I would love to hear from anyone that has performed this in the past 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Keyword_NotProvided0 -
Google is alternating what link it likes to rank on wordpress site and
Hi there, I'm experiencing a problem where google is pick and choosing different links structures to rank my Wordpress site for my main keywords. The site had pretty good #1 rankings for a long time but recently I noticed Google is choosing to rank the page in one of two ways. Let me just say that the original way where it held good rankings looked like this for example: flowers.com/the-most-beautiful-wedding-bouquets/ this is just an example it' is not my site. And when google decides to switch it up it uses this link structure:flowers.com > weddings (this still points to this link flowers.com/the-most-beautiful-wedding-bouquets when I hover my mouse over it) however this link structure that never appeared before and now does, usually has much lower rankings. Please note it's not both link structures being ranked at the same time for the keywords. It's one or the other that google is currently alternating in ranking and I believe it's hurting the sites position.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | z8YX9F80
I'm not sure if this is a wordpress settings thats gone wrong or what the problem is but I do know when shows the expanded and descriptive link structure flowers.com/the-most-beautiful-wedding-bouquets the rankings are higher and in 2nd place. I'm hoping by rectifying this I can regain back my position. I'm very grateful for any insight you could offer on why this is happening and how I could fix it. Thank you. PS Wordpress site has several SEO plugins0 -
Keyword Rankings: One keyword dropped, dragging other rankings down. Possible or not?
Hey moz fans, So these week I noticed significant drop in rankings... But what caught my attention is that one specific keyword dropped 18 positions, and all the other just 1-3. Print screen: http://prntscr.com/7fb4g4 Do you think it's possible that the drop of that page, that went 18 positions down, brought the whole domain down? Or is it another cause?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kokolo0 -
How can I export SEOmoz ranking reports to google spreadsheet
How can I export SEOmoz website rankings to Google Spreadsheet? I have applied other SEOmoz API's and Google Spreadsheet combos effectively but cannot find anything online for this. I would like to display current ranking and ranking history for specific keywords in Google Spreadsheet and have them update automatically using the SEOmoz API.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Michael_Rock0 -
Our Site's Content on a Third Party Site--Best Practices?
One of our clients wants to use about 200 of our articles on their site, and they're hoping to get some SEO benefit from using this content. I know standard best practices is to canonicalize their pages to our pages, but then they wouldn't get any benefit--since a canonical tag will effectively de-index the content from their site. Our thoughts so far: add a paragraph of original content to our content link to our site as the original source (to help mitigate the risk of our site getting hit by any penalties) What are your thoughts on this? Do you think adding a paragraph of original content will matter much? Do you think our site will be free of penalty since we were the first place to publish the content and there will be a link back to our site? They are really pushing for not using a canonical--so this isn't an option. What would you do?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicole.healthline1 -
Separate Site or should we incorporate it into our main site
Hello, We have a website to sell personal development trainings. The owners want to start 2 blogs - one for each owner - that promotes their personal coaching practices. What's the SEO advantages of embedding both blogs in the current site vs starting 2 brand new blogs with their names as the domain names?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BobGW0 -
Can Affiliate Links Harm Your Rank?
Does Google interpret Affiliate links as paid links? If so, can Affiliate links harm your rank if they are not properly tagged with a no-follow? Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AWCthreads0 -
Blog - on the domain or place on separate site, now that Panda ranks for bounce, TOP, depth of visit
Over 10 years ago, we decided to run our blog external to our main website. contrary to conventional wisdom then, we thought we’d have more control/opps for generating external anchor text links, plus working in a bona fide blog software environment (WP). As we had hoped, the blog generated alot of strong inbound links, captured inbound links of it own from other sites and I think, helped improve our SERPs and traffic. Once the blog was established and with the redesign of the website, we capitulated, and finally moved the blog onto the main domain. After reading a number of pieces on Panda and the new reality of SEO, sounds like bounce rates (in particular), time on page, and other GA measures may have a more profound influence on google rankings now. Given that blogs are notoriously for high bounce rates (ours is), low time on site, depth of visit, seems logical that it adversely affects our site averages for the main domain). Is it time to re-consider pulling our blog off the main domain to reassert the ‘true’ GA measures of the main domain? I guess it still gets down to the question... is the advantage of all the inbound links to the blog on the main domain of greater value than moving the blog off-site and reasserting better 'site stats' for google's pando algo? Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ahw0