Should You Use 301 Redirects When Switching To A Secure SSL Server?

[Webpresence]

Hi, our client has switched from a non-secure server to a secure (SSL) server.. but the non secure pages still exist, i.e.

http://www.stainlesshandrailsystems.co.uk/balustrade-systems.html (non-secure)
https://www.stainlesshandrailsystems.co.uk/balustrade-systems.html (secure)

We assumed that we should 301 redirect the http pages to the new https pages using the following htaccess rule;

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

HOWEVER! both of the above pages show the same Page Authority (PA) and Pagerank (PR).. does this mean that they are being seen as the same page, do we really need to employ 301 redirects?

Many thanks in advance, much appreciated.

Lee

[David-Kley]

I would have all URLs go to the secure version. It makes more sense to have one version indexed.

If there was a purpose for the Secure Socket Layer to begin with I would assume you would only want people to access that version.

[JaneCopland]

Hi Lee,

Pages like this often show the same or similar metrics, but it's still best practice to have only one version resolve so I would still either canonicalise with the canonical tag or use 301 redirects, yes.

[Webpresence]

Thanks for this Jane, good to know that we're doing it right.. am still a little unsure why the metrics are identical but as you say it's better to be safe than sorry