Changing Expired Domains to Https (Help needed to understand)

[sayeen]

Hi guys,

Need help in understanding this.

Say I have a brandable expired domain xyz.com. It has amazing backlinks and anchor text but they are all point to the http version.

What would happen if I get the expired domain and then install an SSL certificate on it. Will it retain its power?

Thanks

 

[CaramelBiscuit]

Hi guys,

Need help in understanding this.

Say I have a brandable expired domain xyz.com. It has amazing backlinks and anchor text but they are all point to the http version.

What would happen if I get the expired domain and then install an SSL certificate on it. Will it retain its power?

Thanks

Yes it will once the http is 301 redirected to the https version.

To do this you just need to make a simple alteration to your .htaccess file and if you're gonna be running WordPress it's even easier than that.

 

[Nargil]

I advise my clients not to use https for expired domains. Https might be some slight ranking factor, but all the backlinks will be 301 redirected from http to https, meaning, that there will be some link juice loss once this is done. Is that lost link juice worthy of having https, which is an absolutely miniature ranking factor? No it's not.

All this https obsession lately is doing more harm than good. If Wirecutter can live without https, so can your sites.

 

[Unreliable Witness]

HTTPS may not even be a ranking factor.

If you are operating an e-commerce site, it might reassure customers that their personal data is safer with you. If you use HTTPS on some pages, anecdotal evidence is that you should use it on all - Google isn't supposedly as good at dealing with sites that use it on some pages only as we might think.

Otherwise, on a PBN where there is little user interaction, why do you need to encrypt user requests?

 

[bartosimpsonio]

I see so many high ranking sites not use https, I feel like I wasted a bunch of time back when google announced this.

 

[CaramelBiscuit]

I see so many high ranking sites not use https, I feel like I wasted a bunch of time back when google announced this.

I feel you, sometimes it feels like Google makes a bunch of stuff up to see if they can get SEO / Webmasters to take the bait!

 

[bartosimpsonio]

I feel you, sometimes it feels like Google makes a bunch of stuff up to see if they can get SEO / Webmasters to take the bait!

And they do!

You get statements from their anti-SEO team and right in your face you search the SERPs and it's the contrary.

 

[littlewebdragon]

I advise my clients not to use https for expired domains. Https might be some slight ranking factor, but all the backlinks will be 301 redirected from http to https, meaning, that there will be some link juice loss once this is done. Is that lost link juice worthy of having https, which is an absolutely miniature ranking factor? No it's not.

All this https obsession lately is doing more harm than good. If Wirecutter can live without https, so can your sites.

Exactly. Only fucking difference that I've ever seen from https is that it does not show "not secure" in Chrome but sweet little green padlock. That is all. In addition to this, I would say that once 301 is done, it passed 60-70% or so of "power" from some of my testing/experience and it is not worth doing.

Shitty thing would be if G starts to show "not secure" in their search result (like it does with AMP pages or "mobile friendly"), that would scare the shit out of visitors and decrease CTR a lot for non-secure websites.

 

[CaramelBiscuit]

And they do!

You get statements from their anti-SEO team and right in your face you search the SERPs and it's the contrary.

Yes I've seen that myself. Unsure if it's worse after Matt Cutts taking a background step or just business as usual.

 

[bartosimpsonio]

Yes I've seen that myself. Unsure if it's worse after Matt Cutts taking a background step or just business as usual.

Just business as usual. It's always been like that. Folks are getting smarter now. I think.