Moving website from HTTP to fully HTTPS and SEO implications

[Vik Pathania]

Why are people saying that https and http are two different websites? How different is https and http?
The URI is the same and the content is the same. Only the protocol changes.

Why would the protocol have any impact on SEO? Whether or not the content is encrypted from point A to point B, why would that matter SEO wise?


Thanks for your help!

 

[skyflash]

It's like www and non www, they are 2 different URLs (same website same content but different URLs) for search engines, most websites use http for non secure regular web pages and https for payment gateways and shopping carts.

 

[Heraclitus]

I also read somewhere that your social stuff like fb likes will revert to 0. Until this is fixed moving to https without any significant benefit is in my opinion not worth it.

 

[Reyone]

It matters because you are ranking for A and not for B.

It should not have a huge impact for as long as you properly set redirects; still, it may hinder your rankings for a bit until the bots figure it out. If the site has some decent traffic, you should not have any issues.

Still, I would not switch URL structure unless it was STRICTLY required.

I also read somewhere that your social stuff like fb likes will revert to 0. Until this is fixed moving to https without any significant benefit is in my opinion not worth it.

They don't revert... they just don't show anymore since the URL is different. You send 1k likes to http://asd.com, https://asd.com won't have any likes.

 

[Openside]

I couldn't find a lot of info on this when I had to move my site to https. Do a redirect in your htaccess and you should be fine.

There was a piece from Google recently that said secure sites may be ranked better in the near future.

 

[lxrseo]

This is not much serious issue, only a small weight age is giving in rankings, then why to go for https. HTTPs protocal is only for secure communication (for product based websites) to build trust in users, what if i have service based site, i am not going to sell any product from my site, then do i need to have https.

 

[pr0ject]

I would stay in HTTP. HTTPS is relevant but not that much.

 

[blackcoffee7]

You could get a little boost from google if you use https for your whole site. Setting up 301 redirects from http to https urls shouldn't be that hard.

 

[Jack Torrance]

Don't switch. It's probably worthless unless you're an e-commerce site. As a side note, always use WWW.

 

[bls]

if moved to https, which linkbacks add with https or the same http? or it's doesn't matter?

 

[Techxan]

Don't switch. It's probably worthless unless you're an e-commerce site. As a side note, always use WWW.

As a side note, www is being phased out.

 

[srinbrin]

becareful, i have a friend get penalty from google, the reason because being duplicate content, the old http version is not redirected properly to the new https version

 

[bls]

omg, guys, I switched... but my programmers do 302 redirect!!! LOL.... Now I returned all back to http, but I don't know google filtered my site or not, site lost positions after this redirect and I believe he returned.... or not (

 

[Quamz0]

omg, guys, I switched... but my programmers do 302 redirect!!! LOL.... Now I returned all back to http, but I don't know google filtered my site or not, site lost positions after this redirect and I believe he returned.... or not (

That sucks, do as many redirects as possible through dns then .htaccess, I just switched it was a pain, took me over a week to tweak it and get ti just right but I think it will be worth it, but I also switch to a cdn, upgraded my hosting and added a custom 404 at the same time lol

 

[bls]

That sucks, do as many redirects as possible through dns then .htaccess, I just switched it was a pain, took me over a week to tweak it and get ti just right but I think it will be worth it, but I also switch to a cdn, upgraded my hosting and added a custom 404 at the same time lol

I know, now I'm back to http, or need fix https? I do not know how to do the right thing. Maybe need wait, link joice not flow to https, and maybe google return back site on http?

I remove doubles content with https throught wmt, and wait now

 

[Yarosss]

I have not yet done this switching process because I also had some doubts - I mean I had only small affiliate websites and thought it would not be worth it. BUT here are some articles (including one real case study).

www(dot)billhartzer(dot)com/pages/http-to-https-update-one-month-after-moving/
www(dot)forbes(dot)com/sites/johnrampton/2014/08/30/should-i-switch-from-http-to-https-for-seo-reasons/
www(dot)stonetemple(dot)com/how-strong-is-https-as-a-ranking-factor/

 

[Jack Torrance]

As a side note, www is being phased out.

Irrelevant, there are a lot of problems you could run into if you don't have a WWW. With a WWW you have easy cookie-less domains, can use complimentary CloudFlare services offered by some hosts, if you need a fresh start and your non-WWW profile is okay you can alter WWW to WW1.site.com, when people link to sites etc. they pretty much always put WWW on the link, your host will be able to redirect traffic to a new server with CNAMEs if your site is big and the server fails. There's zero reason to not use WWW unless you're OCD about looking "neat"... And even then everyone is used to seeing the WWW and URLs without it look a little strange sometimes.

I was duped into setting up on a non-WWW and I had to suffer through a year of running into problems with things I could have done had I picked the right option of having a WWW. That site is finished now so luckily from here on out I can use my WWWs.