Installing SSL certificate and impact on SEO

AnonymMoose · Dec 2, 2011

I installed SSL on my site today and redirected all traffic to https:// in .htaccess :

RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} 80
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.mysite.co.uk/$1 [R=301,L]

Will this affect my current position in google in any significant way? If so, is there any easy and working way to avoid this?

nitro23456 · Dec 2, 2011

Depending on how you have implemented this you may have duplicate/canonical content issues.

The easiest way is to use a link rel canonical tag on the https URL version pointing to the equivalent http version. It depends on which version you want indexed but you may have already done this the 'wrong' way round - you could use something like the following:

<head>
<link rel="canonical" href="http://www.domain.com/yourpage"/>
</head>
<body>
The rest of your page

If you need the secure version showing throughout you have done the .htaccess correctly by the looks of it

AnonymMoose · Dec 2, 2011

nitro23456 said:
Depending on how you have implemented this you may have duplicate/canonical content issues.

The easiest way is to use a link rel canonical tag on the https URL version pointing to the equivalent http version. It depends on which version you want indexed but you may have already done this the 'wrong' way round - you could use something like the following:

<head>
<link rel="canonical" href="http://www.domain.com/yourpage"/>
</head>
<body>
The rest of your page

Thanks for reply. All links to my site point to http:// and it's been climbing up in google for some keywords for a while now. Am I right thinking that http and https are seen by search engines as separate sites, just like www and non-www pages?

On the second thought, is there actually any point in securing all pages? I could leave https on just login, checkout and account management pages in this case and exclude them from indexing in robots.txt.

Do customers pay much attention on whole site being signed by certificate, or it's not worth all the hassle?

Deleted member 61074 · Dec 2, 2011

AnonymMoose said:
On the second thought, is there actually any point in securing all pages? I could leave https on just login, checkout and account management pages in this case and exclude them from indexing in robots.txt.

That's how I would do it

nitro23456 · Dec 2, 2011

Well, you certainly need it for your checkout and that's how I would do it.

Currently It could possibly effect your rankings while google discovers your 301s but should come good again.

Decide what you want to do, do it, get it right and then stick with it. Nothing worse than a constant chopping and changing with such things.

nitro23456 · Dec 2, 2011

Well, you certainly need it for your checkout and that's how I would do it.

Currently It could possibly effect your rankings while google discovers your 301s but should come good again.

Decide what you want to do, do it, get it right and then stick with it. Nothing worse than a constant chopping and changing with such things.

ITsoldUK · Dec 2, 2011

I would not secure the whole site. You are spot on.

Just secure the pages where customers and visitors have to enter personal information.

Securing the whole site would be overkill in my eyes and could become cumbersome to manage. Especially if you have images showing that are referenced using absolute links and not relative.

HTH

Regards
Daren

Curious · Dec 3, 2011

If you have a secured site would you get the referrers from a secured Google search? Would the referrals be passed because they're going from one secure site to another - or would they still blocked?

Andrew Baker · Dec 3, 2011

Curious said:
If you have a secured site would you get the referrers from a secured Google search? Would the referrals be passed because they're going from one secure site to another - or would they still blocked?

Unfortunately not, I had considered this an option as well but the way Google have set this up they have effectively hacked the SSL so even though search and site are both secure the keyword data still isn't passed through - hence the [not provided].

webstore · Dec 5, 2011

We only apply https:// to pages where customers are logging into their accounts and/or are entering their name & address details and https:// gets specified in configure.php and not .htacess. (For credit card details these get added on a secure third party payment gateway site).

That makes life so much easier with respect to SEO etc running as http:// until going to https// is really necessary for sensitive data entry.
.

I, Brian · Dec 6, 2011

So far as I understand it, a SSL cert on a domain is a potential quality mark - but the entire website should not be secured: that is not what Google is looking for.

webstore · Dec 6, 2011

I said:
So far as I understand it, a SSL cert on a domain is a potential quality mark - but the entire website should not be secured: that is not what Google is looking for.

An SSL Certificate is a lot more than a quality mark. (i) It provides encryption of data, between client and web-server (ii) it confirms that a Trusted Third Party has verified that the domain belongs to the company it is supposed to belong to and normally that the company itself has been verified as being in existence by way of verification (in the UK) from a matching VAT Certificate and/or matching telephone bill and/or Companies House check.
.

helmuc · Jan 11, 2012

hi. quite a hot topic

probably the site will gain some slight loading speed loss - that will be a minus, but any ideas does https boost domain authority?

have anybody done this to an existing website?

Another question is: am I gonna loose the PR? ... yes, we are still obsessed with it

thank you in advance, Helmuts

webstore · Aug 28, 2014

eddiemayan said:
There is more to it than meets the eye, Google out of nowhere saying that moving over to HTTPS will give a ranking boost in the SERPs sounds a bit unfair to me.

Actually its is reported on sites like http://searchengineland.com/google-starts-giving-ranking-boost-secure-httpsssl-sites-199446 that :-

Based on their tests, Google says it has an impact on “fewer than 1% of global queries” but said they “may decide to strengthen” the signal because they want to “encourage all website owners to switch from HTTP to HTTPS to keep everyone safe on the web.”

Google will be aware that they can't rush this given IPv4 s are fast running out and we at WebStore are now getting emails asking if we have any spare IPv4 s to sell .. not that we have any.

fisicx · Aug 28, 2014

In other words, leave everything exactly as it is. Don't rush into https, good old http will be fine for many years to come.

webstore · Aug 28, 2014

fisicx said:
In other words, leave everything exactly as it is. Don't rush into https, good old http will be fine for many years to come.

Hi Fisicx - No not saying that at all but you of all people with know that IPv4 is running out fast - there's a really great article at http://www.theregister.co.uk/Print/2014/04/24/ipv6_iot/ and to the best of my knowledge, albeit I stand to be corrected, that hugely popular sofware like cPanel needs a dedicated IP for each SSL.

There's another article well worth a read at http://www.internetsociety.org/depl...dresses-for-azure-cloud-time-to-move-to-ipv6/

Also there's a limit to the number of IPs one can have on cloud servers which so many companies use these days. Furthermore Google have yet to say whether they are going to eventually favour an EV SSL over that of an SSL that has been business name validated by a Trusted Third Party over that of the cheapest SSLs that are not business name validated. Ian WebStore

fisicx · Aug 28, 2014

I agree that it's something that may well become the norm in time but it's not something you need to rush into. This thread began on 2011 and there hasn't been any significant development since then apart from the sudden and misleading Google announcement.

andygambles · Aug 30, 2014

There are security enhancements with going 100% https. You can reduce the risk of mitm attacks and prevent snooping on your browser activity. You will also see referal data from https sites (except where it is actively removed ala Google and Facebook).

There will be a pain curve when initially going https so it needs to be planned very carefully. You might find some widgets are insecure but this can highlight potential risks to your site.

With regards to the comment about IP4 running out this has already happened. However SNI has come along to save the day. This allows multiple SSL certs on a single IP. Sadly this has simply delayed the process of moving to IP6.

Some articles I've written on the subject
https://blog.servertastic.com/does-https-damage-seo/
https://blog.servertastic.com/switching-your-site-to-100-https/

fisicx · Sep 1, 2014

Paulsimmons said:
Yes it will effect your rankings but it will be in positive direction as Google considers websites with ssl certificate more secure and give them better ranks.

Have you actually read the Google document regarding https? They state quite clearly: less than 1% of searches will be affected and any benefits will be dwarfed by quality content. In other words, it is very unlikely to affrect your ranking.

fisicx · Sep 1, 2014

Paulsimmons said:
Yes it will effect your rankings but it will be in positive direction as Google considers websites with ssl certificate more secure and give them better ranks.

Have you actually read the Google document regarding https? They state quite clearly: less than 1% of searches will be affected and any benefits will be dwarfed by quality content. In other words, it is very unlikely to affrect your ranking.

drdialeruk · Sep 4, 2014

Well. Google launches domain registrar. Google encourages use of SSL for SEO that are a massive pain to buy. Next, Google starts selling SSL…

Installing SSL certificate and impact on SEO

AnonymMoose

AnonymMoose

Deleted member 61074

ITsoldUK

Andrew Baker

webstore

webstore

webstore

webstore