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Lessons on upgrading a site from Http to Https

by Switchback801
12 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Hello Group!

First official post besides the welcome thread. Thank you for the warm welcome.

I'm going to summarize my observations from my towing service websites and hopefully provide a few suggestions that a professional might be able to monetize and provide this as a service...

"Change your site to HTTPS".
Google likes Https.
You'll be fine.... they like https.


Sure! Maybe after 3-6 months.

1. What they don't explain is that Google treats the Https as a total new URL. In fact, you have to go into search console and add the property.
2. The old http URL will be condemned in Google Fetch and can't be crawled because it's now a 301 redirect.
3. Any ranking you had? Well you can kiss it goodbye. With any luck, you'll bounce back in a couple months.
4. As time goes on, you'll scour the internet hoping to find a few clues on how to get it to bounce back.
5. I noticed a jump once I upgraded the .ht access file. but we both know any link juice isn't passing along at 100% so you'll need to go change a gazillion urls across the entire web.
6. all this chaos happened because you felt it was worthwhile to https and upgrading was the responsible thing for the long term.

Https is great.
Sure Just plan on killing your revenue, ranking and sales while in transition. The entire reindexing process begins from scratch. All because you added Security to your website.

I feel if Google wants this and it's for the greater good, then throw out a better "change of address" system.
The way it's set up now? Your URLs die a ranking death. The https starts as brand new URL and then gets reborn.

I'm hoping someone with professional experience and knowledge will read this and choose to offer a streamlined niche service that is specific to https upgrade.
If you strike gold, remember who gave you the idea and be sure to share the love. I'll accept shares!

Let's make it happen, Warriors!
#http #https #lessons #site #upgrading
  • Profile picture of the author Switchback801
    So... at the end of the day, was it worth clicking that little box that said Upgrade to HTTPS??

    I don't know. I do know it's been a pain in the arse. I worry about it.
    Since my site has no cart, it's not a retail self-checkout website, there was no clear advantage and now I see the disadvantages.

    My advice to you?
    Think this through very very carefully. Unless Google provides a simple shortcut to make the upgrade? Don't touch the https upgrade button on your host.
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  • Profile picture of the author Xavier1945
    In my case the migration from HTTP to HTTPS gained a lot of views. from Social Search, especially the AMP. But i feel that you had made a mistake of not cleaning up your old URLs before migration, I deleted all my google properties before i migrate them to HTTPs and to start afresh. This practice changed the old urls into new HTTPs ones without showing you 301.

    The reason you faced problem because you confused google by providing it both HTTP and HTTPs URLs which gets de-index due to content duplication.

    HTTPs works a million times better on search.
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  • Profile picture of the author nowservingpixels
    The transition period is tough, but the alternative is to keep with the outdated HTTP format and increasingly be seen as untrustworthy by browsers, search engines and visitors. Until one day in the not-so-distant future your website is rendered completely obsolete.
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  • Profile picture of the author Andrew Axe
    You must switch to HTTPS, it's become a necessity now. Especially the service you are providing (towing service), the competition is tough. And Google demotes the sites that still have HTTP in them. Make a 301 redirection or permanent HTTPS. SECURITY IS MUST NOW!

    USE CLOUDFLARE!

    Bro, it's become now so easy to transit to HTTP to HTTPS. He should press the https upgrade button in order to sustain!
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  • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
    If you lost traffic for 3-6 months, you did something wrong in the migration. I have done a lot of migrations and have not seen a significant impact that lasted longer than a week. Most sites had zero impact.
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    • Profile picture of the author praetserge
      Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

      If you lost traffic for 3-6 months, you did something wrong in the migration. I have done a lot of migrations and have not seen a significant impact that lasted longer than a week. Most sites had zero impact.

      Got to agree here.
      As I posted in another thread... for me, the first month was rocky but then I think I gained a few positions for some keywords after switching to https.


      and as the others said... https is kinda a norm now but you have to be ready to weather the storm.


      PS: what about 301 from example.com to www.example.com 301 redirects and they had no impact?


      PSS: most of the websites use https and they are fine... so I really doubt google treats you in a very special negative way.
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  • Profile picture of the author aarticod
    Banned
    Purchase an SSL certificate,
    Install your SSL certificate on your website's hosting account,
    Make sure that any website links are changed from http to https so they are not broken after you flip the https switch, and
    Set up 301 redirects from HTTP to HTTPS so that search engines are notified that your site's addresses have changed and so that anyone who has bookmarked a page on your site is automatically redirected to the https address after you flip the switch.
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  • Profile picture of the author alanbenney
    The problem with most hosting companies they charge extra each year of an https so that is probably the reason that many blogs don't take that option and choose the http and it is true if you want to change it and upgrade to an https that will screw up your rankings

    So the best thing to do is find a hosting company that doesn't charge extra for the https which is what is did

    Hope that helps
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  • Profile picture of the author luciesmazanska
    Originally Posted by Switchback801 View Post

    Hello Group!

    First official post besides the welcome thread. Thank you for the warm welcome.

    I'm going to summarize my observations from my towing service websites and hopefully provide a few suggestions that a professional might be able to monetize and provide this as a service...

    "Change your site to HTTPS".
    Google likes Https.
    You'll be fine.... they like https.


    Sure! Maybe after 3-6 months.

    1. What they don't explain is that Google treats the Https as a total new URL. In fact, you have to go into search console and add the property.
    2. The old http URL will be condemned in Google Fetch and can't be crawled because it's now a 301 redirect.
    3. Any ranking you had? Well you can kiss it goodbye. With any luck, you'll bounce back in a couple months.
    4. As time goes on, you'll scour the internet hoping to find a few clues on how to get it to bounce back.
    5. I noticed a jump once I upgraded the .ht access file. but we both know any link juice isn't passing along at 100% so you'll need to go change a gazillion urls across the entire web.
    6. all this chaos happened because you felt it was worthwhile to https and upgrading was the responsible thing for the long term.

    Https is great.
    Sure Just plan on killing your revenue, ranking and sales while in transition. The entire reindexing process begins from scratch. All because you added Security to your website.

    I feel if Google wants this and it's for the greater good, then throw out a better "change of address" system.
    The way it's set up now? Your URLs die a ranking death. The https starts as brand new URL and then gets reborn.

    I'm hoping someone with professional experience and knowledge will read this and choose to offer a streamlined niche service that is specific to https upgrade.
    If you strike gold, remember who gave you the idea and be sure to share the love. I'll accept shares!

    Let's make it happen, Warriors!
    I know few people who had the same experience as you've had.

    There are many reasons why this can happen but personally I think that you or someone else either:
    1. did something wrong while setting up this migration (it should be done by a website provider AT NO COST)
    2. google said: hmmm why Is he trying to do it now? Is there any suspicious activity related to this business? did they changed a niche or start offering something like MMO offers?
    3. some businesses had a HTTP + negative reviews after that they switched to HTTPS which was suspicious for google so they decreased rankings...

    there can be +70 another reasons. Google is like a spider net lol
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  • Profile picture of the author Mike3001
    I moved from HTTP to HTTPS. It really helped in the long run
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  • Profile picture of the author anoop1234
    Hii, friends i want to tell you that become now so easy to transit to HTTP to HTTPS. you should press the https upgrade button in order to sustain!
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  • Profile picture of the author sneha Sethi
    On the surface, changing from http to https is pretty straightforward:

    Purchase an SSL certificate,
    Install your SSL certificate on your website's hosting account,
    Make sure that any website links are changed from http to https so they are not broken after you flip the https switch, and
    Set up 301 redirects from HTTP to HTTPS so that search engines are notified that your site's addresses have changed and so that anyone who has bookmarked a page on your site is automatically redirected to the https address after you flip the switch.
    It's just that easy. However, thanks to the overwhelming number of options offered by SSL certificate vendors and packages offered by hosting companies, this straightforward process can become very confusing.
    The situation is not helped by the fact that moving your site from http to https requires dealing with more tech than most small business folks feel prefer.

    That's why we're going to dive into the four steps above only as deeply as necessary to make the business decisions that need to be made and to understand the technical details on a basic level.

    Why not go deeper on the technical end? For one good reason that will make the entire process of changing from http to https easier:
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