Multiple 301 redirects for a HTTPS URL. Good or bad?

[jasondexter]

I'm working on an ecommerce website that has a few snags and issues with it's coding.

They're using https, and when you access the website through domain.com, theres a 301 redirect to http://www.domain.com and then this, in turn, redirected to https://www.domain.com.

Would this have a deterimental effect or is that considered the best way to do it. Have the website redirect to http and then all http access is redirected to the https URL?

Thanks

[TranslateMediaLtd]

Hi Jason,

It's fine to 301 redirect from http: to https: and it's quite common for sites that use SSL. It's exactly the same principle as redirecting from a non-www to www (e.g. http://example.com to http://www.example.com) - which is considered to be good practice. But there should only be a single redirect. So you should ensure that http://example.com redirects to https://www.example.com without first redirecting to http://www.example.com.

I would also make sure that all pages (not just the homepage) redirect from http: to https: too to ensure there are no duplicate content issues on the rest of the site.

[JaneCopland]

Hi Jason,

To add to what Yusuf has said, is there a specific reason why the whole site has to use SSL, rather than just the parts of the website where sensitive information is passed? If so, I would be tempted to recommend that the e-commerce pages (products, categories, etc.) remain on HTTP URLs.

Cheers,

Jane

[TranslateMediaLtd]

I agree with Jane. Unless there are reasons why the whole site needs to be secure, it makes more sense for just the areas where sensitive information is being submitted to be SSL encrypted.

http: requests are processed more quickly than https: ones due to the SSL handshake required to produce the cryptographic parameters for the user's session - so your site would be a little quicker if you weren't using SSL.

However, if you do decide to use http: rather than https: for the product & category pages like Jane has suggested - you'd need to ensure that the https: versions of these pages redirect to http:... again to avoid duplicate content.

[ThompsonPaul]

To answer your specific question, Jason, yes, there's an issue with those URLs going through two consecutive redirects.

Each redirect, like any link, costs a little bit of "link juice". So running through two consecutive redirects is wasting twice as much link juice as if the origin URL redirects immediately to the final URL without the intermediate step. It's not a massive difference, but on an e-commerce site especially, there's no point in wasting any. (Some folks reckon the loss could be as high as 15% per link/redirect.) Plus, I've occasionally seen problems with referrer data being maintained across multiple redirects (anecdotal).

Hope that answers your specific question?

Paul

[rishil]

My personal rule of thumb - as few redirect jumps as possible. Three main reasons:

1. User journey + Browsers - Sometimes when there are too many redirects taking place, some browsers find it difficult to follow through and would simply not load the page.  Also, even if there were only 2-3, the browser may load, but users on slower connections may find it tiresome waiting for content to load.

2. As ThompsonPaul highlights, you COULD lose some link value due to dilution through 301 redirects.

3. Multiple 301 redirects are often used by spammers and I foresee in the near future these causing a lot of ranking headaches. The older the site, the longer the chain might end up - for example, imagine you had a product at:

https://domain.com/product1
Links to that page exist at domain.com/product1

The journey would be: domain.com/product1 >http://domain.com/product1 > https://domain.com/product1

Now imagine a year down the line, product 1 is discontinued and you decide to redirect https://domain.com/product1 to domain.com/product2

Imagine your journey now:

domain.com/product1 >http://domain.com/product1 > https://domain.com/product1 > domain.com/product2 >http://domain.com/product2 > https://domain.com/product2

This could carry on indefinitely in the lifetime of the site...

Best solution: Decide what version of the site you want to use and simply try and use only one redirect, not a chain. Periodically check for chained redirects and resolve as you go along. (I try and do this bi annually).