HTTPS website migration and internal links

[TheDude]

Hey Moz!

I read Moz's guide on migrating websites from http to https, and it seems changing all relative internal links to absolute https is recommended (we currently use relative internal links). But is doing this absolutely necessary if we will already have a redirect in our .htaccess file forcing all http pages to https?

Changing all of our internal links to absolute https will be very time consuming, and I'd like to hear your thoughts as to whether it's absolutely recommended/necessary; and if so, why?

Thanks!

[DmitriiK]

Hi there.

No it's not necessary at all. The reason it's recommended sometimes is that, basically, to eliminate potential extra redirects from http to https. But this would happen only if page you're currently on is not https. So, my thought is that as long as you make sure that there is no way to get to your http website (make sure that it's always redirected to https), you won't have any extra redirects.

From my personal experience: it depends also on hosting servers you use. If they are very slow or you have gigantic htaccess files or something in that spirit, then yes, couple extra redirects to secure version of your website can slowdown page loading on your website. But in modern world it's very rare. So, from dozens of https clients and my own websites I haven't seen any bad-bad experience with relative internal links.

Hope this helps.

[TheDude]

Hey Dmitrii,

Thanks for the response...you seem to be everywhere in the Q&A!

As far as I understand the redirect below would make it impossible for users to reach our http website, which means we wouldn't have to change our relative internal links, correct? Keep in mind, the rewrite below may look a bit different since our website uses a load balancer.

RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{HTTP:X-Forwarded-Proto} !https

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.jwsuretybonds.com$1 [R=301,L]

[DmitriiK]

Yeah, it looks right to me. Can you send me articles where you found people recommending absolute links for https?

[TheDude]

I honestly can't remember, as I started the research months ago and the project had to be put on hold.

I do know that Moz recommends the following: "Make sure every element of your website uses HTTPS, including widgets, java script, CSS files, images and your content delivery network."

Will the redirect I posted above take care of this?

[DmitriiK]

Yes, i believe so.

[TheDude]

Thanks for the info!

Does anyone else have experience with the issues I raised above? I'd love to hear other peoples thoughts too.

[TheDude]

Another question just popped into my head!

Does the Google WMT "Change of Address" tool still not support https?

[DmitriiK]

As far as I know - no, they dont' support it yet (weird, I know). It does say it here: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/83106?hl=en

Note: The tool does not currently support the following kinds of site moves: subdomain name changes, protocol changes (from HTTP to HTTPS), or path-only changes.

[TheDude]

I didn't think so, but wanted to double check.

Regarding redirects, will I have to change old 301 redirects in our .htaccess file that are setup for individual pages from http to https? Or will the site wide redirect take care of this?

Thanks!