SEO question when changing HTTP to HTTPS

[notoriouskrock]

Quick question,

When changing a site from HTTP to HTTPS, how does that affect your SEO?

Is there an easy fix/change for all your internal and external links pointing to your website and pages? Do you have to manually go through every link on your website to make the change, and ask everyone linking to you to change their links as well?

If the answer is doing a redirect, how is that properly done?

I would really like to know!

 

[MxyzptlkFishStix]

Affect on SEO? Couldn't tell you.

How? 301 Redirects or Rewrites depending on your configuration.

As to the links in your pages, nothing that a bit of recursion and sed can't fix.

Inside directory containing html files:

find . -name "*.html" -print0 | xargs -0 sed -i 's/http:\/\/www.example.com/https:\/\/www.example.com/g'

 

[arush4491]

I think http and https no any effect but only secure website.

 

[Freddy63]

Quick question,

When changing a site from HTTP to HTTPS, how does that affect your SEO?

Is there an easy fix/change for all your internal and external links pointing to your website and pages? Do you have to manually go through every link on your website to make the change, and ask everyone linking to you to change their links as well?

If the answer is doing a redirect, how is that properly done?

I would really like to know!

Google will see HTTP and HTTPS versions as two different pages with same content. That's duplicate content. You should fix it or you'll get penalized. You need to notify Google that you're moving to HTTPS. Google's recommended way of doing this is to setup 301 redirects from HTTP to HTTPS and adding both versions as separate properties on Google Search Console.

And about the internal and external links, all external links will pass the juice as long as you keep the 301 redirect. But you want to make sure all internal links are using HTTPS. There're easy ways to do this if you're using WordPress or other CMS. But you might have to do this manually if your website is HTML.

"Doing it Manually" doesn't mean it has to be hard. If you're smart, you can figure out an extremely easy way to do this.

 

[notoriouskrock]

Google will see HTTP and HTTPS versions as two different pages with same content. That's duplicate content. You should fix it or you'll get penalized. You need to notify Google that you're moving to HTTPS. Google's recommended way of doing this is to setup 301 redirects from HTTP to HTTPS and adding both versions as separate properties on Google Search Console.

And about the internal and external links, all external links will pass the juice as long as you keep the 301 redirect. But you want to make sure all internal links are using HTTPS. There're easy ways to do this if you're using WordPress or other CMS. But you might have to do this manually if your website is HTML.

"Doing it Manually" doesn't mean it has to be hard. If you're smart, you can figure out an extremely easy way to do this.

Thanks for the answer, this was very helpful.

I am using Wordpress. What is the easy way to change all internal HTTP links to HTTPS? Is there a plugin?

 

[bweed]

Thanks for the answer, this was very helpful.

I am using Wordpress. What is the easy way to change all internal HTTP links to HTTPS? Is there a plugin?

Changing the WP generated links is just a matter of change the site url in settings | general. If you have links in your content and too many pages to edit them manually the easiest way is with a an SQL query. But if you've got proper http -> https redirects in place it shouldn't matter if some of the links are HTTP.

This is how I setup redirects on my apache sites:

###BEGIN HTTP -> HTTPS redirect
#<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
SetEnv HTTP_MOD_REWRITE On
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} 80
RewriteRule .* https://%{SERVER_NAME}%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L]
#</IfModule>
###END HTTP -> HTTPS redirect

 

[notoriouskrock]

where does that code go

Changing the WP generated links is just a matter of change the site url in settings | general. If you have links in your content and too many pages to edit them manually the easiest way is with a an SQL query. But if you've got proper http -> https redirects in place it shouldn't matter if some of the links are HTTP.

This is how I setup redirects on my apache sites:

###BEGIN HTTP -> HTTPS redirect
#<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
SetEnv HTTP_MOD_REWRITE On
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} 80
RewriteRule .* https://%{SERVER_NAME}%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L]
#</IfModule>
###END HTTP -> HTTPS redirect

Where does that code go, in the .htaccess?

 

[bweed]

where does that code go


Where does that code go, in the .htaccess?

It depends on your site configuration. If you're using shared hosting then most likely .htaccess. In some cases what you can do with .htaccess is limited by the virtual server config though. I can't remember of the top of my head but I think if it's in .htaccess you might have to get rid of the two lines with 'IfModule' in them.

 

[notoriouskrock]

It depends on your site configuration. If you're using shared hosting then most likely .htaccess. In some cases what you can do with .htaccess is limited by the virtual server config though. I can't remember of the top of my head but I think if it's in .htaccess you might have to get rid of the two lines with 'IfModule' in them.

I am using shared hosting.

 

[Freddy63]

You might need to add this code to wp-config.php as well,

define('FORCE_SSL_ADMIN', true);
if ($_SERVER['HTTP_X_FORWARDED_PROTO'] == 'https')
 $_SERVER['HTTPS']='on';

Do this after you setup https and redirects. And if you want someone else to do it for you, you can hire me.
Enable SSL for your Domain - Nginx Virtualmin Ubuntu Server tutorials

 

[notoriouskrock]

You might need to add this code to wp-config.php as well,

define('FORCE_SSL_ADMIN', true);
if ($_SERVER['HTTP_X_FORWARDED_PROTO'] == 'https')
$_SERVER['HTTPS']='on';

Do this after you setup https and redirects. And if you want someone else to do it for you, you can hire me.
Enable SSL for your Domain - Nginx Virtualmin Ubuntu Server tutorials

I really want to learn how to do this myself. I wish there was a clear step by step guide on redirects, and HTTPS. SSL just seems so complicated, and I have read that if done wrong, it can ruin SEO.

 

[Param Singh]

@notoriouskrock In WordPress its very easy to move from http to https. Follow the steps

Dashboard -> Settings -> General -> in WordPress Address (URL) and Site Address (URL) change http to https and its done.

Hope that helps.

 

[AliceArifova]

I think http and https no any effect on website but only secure website.

 

[Andrew Clarkson]

https ranks better!

 

[Dr. Forum]

When you are making a redirection from the http to https, you are changing all the migration. I can not see how the whole process will interfere with your SEO. Any traffic that comes through the old protocol, be sure that a redirect shall happen. In fact, in most case you will find the SEO has really improved because of the improvement in the security details of your website. So do not be worried about anything for all is fine buddy.