Huge SERP drop after HTTPS implementation

newon

newon

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1 month back I implemented https for my site... and from the next day ranking for all KWs went down drastically. I know it takes little time for search engines to re-crawl the site... but how long? It's been more than 30 days and no improvement. Should I revert it to http again?
 
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i changed Nov 1st. and still its not fully done. Everything gets recalculated, and in total no positive change, but also no change in total volume, but single terms did partly suffer. anyhow changing back would create another recalculation. so it would add more risks....
 
You have to make sure you redirected your domain.

If you had previously built back links to your site when it did not have the https (ssl cert) it is treated as a different site and the links don't count for it from my understanding.
 
^ yes they do still count, but if everything is redirected properly you still lose a bit of juice via 301 anyway. I suppose this is counteracted by the slight serp boost https has although it looks like there are a lot of issues still occurring around https migrations
 
Weird. I had a switch to https a week ago. Didnt see any drop. What hosting were you using and your site is wp i guess?

My hosting is siteground and they had a one click switch which also took care of redirecting non https links too.
 
Did you 301 the http to https?
 
I hope you switched due to security reasons rather than rankings boost. Cause https has nothing to do with rankings but to make your data encrypted while transferring. All we know is that HTTPS is one of over 200 ranking signals used for analysis.
So it is actually quite doubtful that your rankings dropped due to the switch itself. But in any case you need to:
- check 301 redirect from http to https
- revising the sitemap, make sure it only includes valid https urls
- you may also check your website for broken links, as switching to https may sometimes increase its number
 
301 does not offer a ranking boost. You lose link juice in the redirection but all the guru bloggers just had another reason to write an article and promote their affiliate offers. It offers benefits in the long run for things like brand trust but you gotta keep building links and make sure the redirects are done correctly.
 
Do a header check on the http:// version of your domain (http headers for Firefox is useful, or you can use an online tool instead). This way you can analyse how the redirect to https works. Make sure it's 301, not 302, as 302 seems to be the default for some platforms.

Do this check for some deeper pages too, not just your homepage.

Run something like Screaming Frog across your website, to make sure you've changed all internal linking to https. That means your XML sitemap too.

A few other things to check: Google Analytics, Google Search Console - make sure these are fetching your https site.

Go through all your social media channels, and change the links to https. Special attention to Google My Business, Google +.

Compile a list of all of your backlinks, and make the effort to change them to point to the https version of your domain. While this is time consuming, make sure your most authoritative links are changed. Not all are essential.
 
I know SEO said:
Did you 301 the http to https?
Click to expand...

Yes... I redirected all links from http to https

fizz707 said:
I hope you switched due to security reasons rather than rankings boost. Cause https has nothing to do with rankings but to make your data encrypted while transferring. All we know is that HTTPS is one of over 200 ranking signals used for analysis.
So it is actually quite doubtful that your rankings dropped due to the switch itself. But in any case you need to:
- check 301 redirect from http to https
- revising the sitemap, make sure it only includes valid https urls
- you may also check your website for broken links, as switching to https may sometimes increase its number
Click to expand...

- All links including sitemaps updated with https
-I have broken link checker plugin installed... found none


everythingred said:
301 does not offer a ranking boost. You lose link juice in the redirection but all the guru bloggers just had another reason to write an article and promote their affiliate offers. It offers benefits in the long run for things like brand trust but you gotta keep building links and make sure the redirects are done correctly.
Click to expand...

But all links suddenly lost their position after moving to https

MoshaD said:
Do a header check on the http:// version of your domain (http headers for Firefox is useful, or you can use an online tool instead). This way you can analyse how the redirect to https works. Make sure it's 301, not 302, as 302 seems to be the default for some platforms.

Do this check for some deeper pages too, not just your homepage.

Run something like Screaming Frog across your website, to make sure you've changed all internal linking to https. That means your XML sitemap too.

A few other things to check: Google Analytics, Google Search Console - make sure these are fetching your https site.

Go through all your social media channels, and change the links to https. Special attention to Google My Business, Google +.

Compile a list of all of your backlinks, and make the effort to change them to point to the https version of your domain. While this is time consuming, make sure your most authoritative links are changed. Not all are essential.
Click to expand...

- I checked almost all pages, no issues found.
- I used seorch.eu to check all internal links... it seems ok.
- Added https version in GA, Bing WMT, GSC.
- I'll start doing that.


Here are the steps I followed to get all links redirected to https. Please correct me if I am doing anything wrong...
- Changed site address in WP admin panel
- added below code in .htaccess file

Code: 
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^sitename.com [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.sitename.com [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^sitename.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.sitename.com/$1 [L,R=301,NC]

RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>

# END WordPress

- Tried adding various versions of link and checked if those are redirecting properly..
sitename.com
www.sitename.com
http:// sitename.com
https:// sitename.com
All redirected to https:// www.sitename.com

I can't understand where I am doing wrong... need serious help.
 
Had the same issue but it has been 3 months for me and still no return in rankings. My site is actually losing more rankings, so i doubt waiting is going to help. All i can say is GL :/
 
FYI i made the call this morning to revert back to HTTP. Ill update and let you know how it goes, i had the same issues as you and i waited and waited but our rankings just kept getting worse. For instance we had about 20 first page terms. After switch to HTTPS we had 2 remaining this morning before i decided to go back to http.
 
go to the google search console and select the preferred https version, you can see the http version slowly get deindexed and increase of the https indexing
 
newon, tell us your website or pm me and i will have a quick audit of your website. May be there is something you missing.
 
fizz707 said:
newon, tell us your website or pm me and i will have a quick audit of your website. May be there is something you missing.
Click to expand...
PMed you the details... please have a look
 
everythingred said:
301 does not offer a ranking boost. You lose link juice in the redirection but all the guru bloggers just had another reason to write an article and promote their affiliate offers. It offers benefits in the long run for things like brand trust but you gotta keep building links and make sure the redirects are done correctly.
Click to expand...

any "proof" for your comments?
 
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