{"id":1421,"date":"2015-02-07T19:28:44","date_gmt":"2015-02-07T13:58:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hostbigspace.com\/?p=1421"},"modified":"2015-02-07T19:28:44","modified_gmt":"2015-02-07T13:58:44","slug":"moving-wordpress-blog-from-http-to-https-safely","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gossdhosting.com\/blog\/general\/moving-wordpress-blog-from-http-to-https-safely\/","title":{"rendered":"Moving WordPress blog from HTTP to HTTPS safely"},"content":{"rendered":"

Moving your website from HTTP to HTTPS is very similar to\u00a0migrating your website to a new URL structure, or a\u00a0new domain<\/a>. In my experience,\u00a0there\u2019s so many things that can\u00a0go wrong if the migration isn\u2019t handled efficiently, which can have a detrimental impact on a website\u2019s rankings.\u00a0To avoid as little disruption as possible to your search engine rankings, you should ensure you plan each stage of the migration in detail, as I\u2019ll go on to explain.<\/p>\n

Firstly, you\u2019ll need to choose the right level of certification for your website (i.e. 2,048 bit certificate) from an accredited\/trusted provider. You\u2019ll find a detailed explanation of all the different levels of certification here<\/a>. One thing to note is that you\u2019ll only get the green padlock bar in the browser if you install an extended SSL certificate<\/a>. Most providers include a free installation service with the purchase of an SSL certificate, so the initial\u00a0stage is often taken care of.<\/p>\n

Once you have installed an appropriate SSL certificate for your website, there are a numerous\u00a0steps you\u2019ll need to take to ensure your website functions as it should, and that search engines are made aware of the change in your site structure.<\/p>\n

\"ssl<\/p>\n

1. Check Internal Links<\/h3>\n

Ensure all your internal links point to the new HTTPS URLs \u2013 this includes\u00a0navigation\/menu links, images, css references on the website etc. If the website still references http files, it will break. \u00a0On WordPress websites, it is often just a case of doing a f<\/a>ind (http) and replace (https) in the database<\/a> to resolve this issue.<\/p>\n

2. Change External Links<\/h3>\n

Ensure any external links and local directory listings are edited to point to your new HTTPS website, including links from your social media profiles.<\/p>\n

3. Check Canonical references<\/h3>\n

Ensure that all rel=canonical references point to the new HTTPS\u00a0version. Once you move over to HTTPS these tags often still point to the HTTP version, leading to Google becoming\u00a0confused over what page should be indexed.<\/p>\n

4. Implement 301 redirects<\/h3>\n

Ensure that you implement a permanent 301 redirect on a page by page basis \u2013 meaning every\u00a0HTTP\u00a0page should be redirected to it\u2019s HTTPS counterpart.\u00a0You must not 301 redirect everything (either via global or via a wild card redirect) to the home page as this\u00a0can have a negative impact on rankings.<\/p>\n

5. Set up HTTPS site in Webmaster Tools<\/h3>\n

Add the HTTPS website as a new property in your webmaster tools account, and submit sitemaps accordingly. At present, the change of address tool doesn\u2019t support http > https requests<\/a>, so Google will rely upon the proper implementation of 301 redirects to understand your new site structure. Once set up,\u00a0keep an eye on your\u00a0Webmaster Tools account and monitor any issues Google may be having with your new HTTPS website.<\/p>\n

HTTP to HTTPS 301 redirects<\/h2>\n

Implementing 301 redirects from your HTTP pages to the new HTTPS versions is an essential to retaining your search engine rankings and traffic. Moving to HTTPS is not as easy as simply buying the certificate and relying on Google to index your new HTTPS website \u2013 you instead need to indicate that your URLs have changed through the use of 301 redirects.<\/p>\n

Google will expect to see a direct replacement for the content on the HTTP URL if you use 301 redirects to a HTTPS URL, so if you redirect all HTTP URLs to the HTTPS homepage, you risk impacting the rankings of all the pages on your website. It is therefore strongly recommended that you redirect all HTTP pages directly to their HTTPS counterparts.<\/p>\n

If your website is running on an Apache server, you can implement a site wide redirect from all\u00a0HTTP pages to their HTTPS counterparts\u00a0by adding a snippet of code to your .htaccess file. Brian K Ross has provided some great advice here<\/a> on using rewrite rules to redirect any http requests to their https counterpart on your website.<\/p>\n

Use the following code in htaccess to redirect visitors to https version using 301 redirect:<\/p>\n

\n
RewriteEngine<\/span> on \n<\/span>RewriteCond<\/span> %{<\/span>HTTPS<\/span>}<\/span> off \n<\/span>RewriteRule<\/span> ^<\/span> https<\/span>:<\/span>\/\/www.example.com%{REQUEST_URI} [NE,R=301,L]<\/span><\/code><\/pre>\n<\/blockquote>\n
If you\u2019re a little unsure how to implement these redirects on your website, I\u2019d suggest contacting an experienced web developer or SEO consultant to avoid any issues.<\/p>\n
Potential negative impacts<\/h2>\n
I have thus far talked about the pros of moving over to HTTPS, but I must warn you it is not always a straightforward process.<\/p>\n
The reason I say this is because with Google, any major changes to a website\u2019s structure, even if done correctly as outlined above, can still result in a short term drop in\u00a0rankings. It often takes a few days (weeks even) for Google to understand complex changes in website structure, and it\u00a0can take time for these changes to be reflected in their results. This often depends on\u00a0how often Google crawls your website, but you can make their life easier by submitting up to date XML sitemaps for your HTTPS pages to webmaster tools as I have suggested.<\/p>\n
The important thing to remember is that you should treat the migration from HTTP to HTTPS just like you would a migration to a new domain. Helping Googlebot to find the new HTTPS pages on your website by updating your navigation links and\u00a0removing any references to your HTTP content will reduce\u00a0any confusion and speed up the time it takes for Google to update your website listings\u00a0in their search results.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Moving your website from HTTP to HTTPS is very similar to migrating your website to a new URL structure, or a new domain. In my experience, there’s so many things that can go wrong if the migration isn’t handled efficiently, which can have a detrimental impact on a website’s rankings. To avoid as little disruption as possible to your search […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4519,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":6}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.gossdhosting.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/social-image.jpg?fit=1200%2C630&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gossdhosting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gossdhosting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gossdhosting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gossdhosting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gossdhosting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.gossdhosting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1421\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gossdhosting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gossdhosting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gossdhosting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gossdhosting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
It should be noted that this is not the W3C<\/a> recommended method of redirecting to SSL. Their recommended method of implementing site wide redirects (using virtual hosts) can be found here<\/a>.<\/p>\n