302 or 301 redirect to https ?

[Kotkov]

I am redirecting whole site to https. Is there a difference between 302 or 301 redirect for seo?

Site never been indexed.

Planning to do that with .htaccess command

RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !=on
RewriteRule ^(.*) https://%{SERVER_NAME}/$1 [R,L]

There are plenty of ways http://www.askapache.com/htaccess/ssl-example-usage-in-htaccess.html

Which way would be the best?

Thanks is advance

[wojkwasi]

301 = permanent redirection

302 = temporary redirection

If the change is permanent then 301

The htaccess rewrite looks fine

[Kotkov]

Thanks, I understand 301 and 302. This command creates 302. I see a lot of website in serp having 302 to https, but also I see a lot with 301. Which is right for Seo when in comes to https?

[wojkwasi]

301 - try this (in it's simplest form):

RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} 80 
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.yoursite.com/$1 [R,L]

[ShaMenz]

Hi Serge,

The reason your redirect is creating a 302 is that it is an unspecified Redirect.

Any redirect that is unspecified will by default be seen as a 302 (Temporary)

To create a 301, you need to specify like this

[R=301,L]

Hope that helps,

Sha

[wojkwasi]

Hi Sha - I think you meant Serge not Woj

But yes, good pick up - I omitted that detail in my hasty reply

[ShaMenz]

oops,

Thanks for the pickup

[Virrtuo]

HTTPS based sites normally add a little stress to the server for handling requests, make sure you are hosted on a good performance web host for users & search engines to access content fast. If you're making HTTPS as the default version and if bots take time to crawl your website, it might after your crawl rate (and possibly ranking)

Just like how we see WWW and non-WWW, HTTP and HTTPS are looked as two different sites by search engines, I'd highly suggest you to go with 301 (permanent) re-direct from the start to save link juice. Keep your SSL certifications valid. If you don't intend to do 301 from start, check your logs often to see if you get any links to HTTP version (as most often people try to link here) and request webmasters to update the link to HTTPS if you want to see your HTTPS version ranking in SERPs.

My personal suggestion is to stick with one and doing 301 before you launch the site live.

Cheers

[Kotkov]

Thanks,

Yes the site from the beginning will be https. We do have a good server, site speed according to google speed tool is 93.

Sha, added  [R=301,L] and now it's 301.