Http and https protocols being indexed for e-commerce website

[Jacobsheehan]

Good morning Laura,

Thanks for the advice.

I've replied below to Logan giving a little context. If you could take a look and let me know your thoughts it would be a huge help.

[LauraSultan]

When you say you currently have self referencing canonicals, is the following happening?

The page http://example.com is canonicalized to http://example.com.

The page https://example.com is canonicalized to https://example.com.

If so, this is the bigger problem because Google sees these as 2 different URLs and may index both of them. Furthermore, you could be splitting backlinks between 2 URLs unnecessarily. This duplicate issue may be part of the reason you saw organic traffic drop when you launched your new site.

If the HTTPS URLs are already being indexed by Google, go ahead and canonicalize the http URLs to the https URLs. In other words, http://example.com will canonicalize to https://example.com.

By setting up the canonical this way, Google will fold the two URLs together and correctly treat them as the same page.

[BasKierkels]

Hi Jacob,

I understand the issue. I think that this way you're not making a decision where you really should:
Either you use non-ssl or either you use ssl. To continue with the both is a terrible situation: nobody really knows what the they are supposed to know.

For instance: is it possible that someone starts on the thomepage (non-ssl), goes to a product page (ssl) and then to the shopping cart which is again non-ssl? If that is the case you should really check your conversion rate because that in itself might be very damaging as well.

Yours,
Bas

[LoganRay]

I agree with the others. I think you should pick a horse and ride it. Indecision is only causing more confusion on Google's part and is going to hurt you in the long run. Google says they prefer HTTPS and I've seen evidence of that. You're already paying for an SSL so you might as well use it to the max.

As Laura said, if you've got self-referring canonical tags on both secure and non-secure URLs, you're setting yourself up for some pretty big issues.

[Jacobsheehan]

Hi Laura,

Wow, when I said we have self referencing canonicals in place (through Drupal Yoast) I hadn't even thought that it could be applying a canonical to the https version of the site aswell.

I just crawled both http and https and as you're right, the following is happening:

http://example.com is canonicalized to http://example.com

https://example.com is canonicalized to https://example.com

But I'm a little confused. In my first post I was looking for help because google was indexing both http and https pages. Are you saying that it's because of these canonicals that google is indexing both? Would it index both even if I didn't have the canonicals in place but still had SSL?

Just to confirm, canonicalizing the http URLs to the https URLs will tell google to fold the http URLs into the https and only index the https version of the site? Would I need to follow the https migration guide by Cyrus when doing this, or is this not really a 'migration' to https as we're not forcing the customer to browse in https?

Bear with me!

[LauraSultan]

Ideally, you'll migrate the entire site to https, and Cyrus' guide is a good one. Google has some helpful info for an http to https migration at https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6073543?hl=en.

The canonical tag solution is for the situation where you can't or don't want to go ahead and switch the whole site over to https right away.  Either way, make sure Google knows, either through 301-redirects or canonical tags, that the http and https versions are the same page.

[Jacobsheehan]

Hey Bas,

My developers share your sentiment!

Both versions of the website can be accessed by both the customer and the bots, but because we use relative urls, it can switch between http and https is a single session. This is one example:

1. Land on the homepage from a google search (http homepage is indexed).

2. Browse site on http. Add something to cart. Go to cart.

3. Cart switches to https. Navigate out of cart back into website.

4. Now urls are all https because the links on our site are relative and don't specify a protocol (e.g customer is in cart and then wants to check contact us page, it's link when clicked is as follows [Contact](/contact us). So it pulls the https protocol as there is not http protocol specified in that contact us link.

Hmmm, it definitely could be effecting UX and conversion.

[LoganRay]

I don't know why this didn't cross my mind until now, but having both versions can also mess up your Google Analytics data. Going from one to the other (can't remember which direction) creates a new session. You've probably got a lot of self-referring traffic showing up in your reports.

[Jacobsheehan]

Great!

I've decided to make the full switch to https now, rather than wait to do it.

I will report back and let you know how it all goes!

Thanks for your help Laura.

[Jacobsheehan]

Just checked my GA data and you're right. Referral data from mountainjade.co.nz is there. Thanks for the heads up.

I've decided to make the switch to https, so will be organising that with dev in the coming few weeks. I'll keep you posted!

Cheers for the help again Logan,

I owe ya.