Linkbuilding to http/https

[Onlinq]

Hello,

Last year we changed our domain name from http to https. In the .htaccess we included a 301 redirect from http to https.

Nevertheless, some pages do not let you link to https, so for linkbuilding we sometimes need to use http://www.domain.ext in stead of https://www.domain.ext.

Would this be a problem? I should expect with the 301 redirect that we don't have an issue here, but I would like to be sure.

Although, I can make the site accessible without https too, but I don't think this is a good idea regarding duplicate content, is it?

Thanks.

Tom

[mememax]

Hi Tom, You definitely have a duplciate content issue, it has always been struggling to optimize an https site, but now with the new feature SE gave you can solve them.

Duplication can be solved using canonicals. Teh canonical tag will help bots to understand which page ranks. I recommend to use the http url which is the frendlier one and the easiest to build links, you can leave the https url for the transactions portions of the website which is where the https is really needed.

Read this article though, it helped me a lot while optimizing such a website

[Onlinq]

Thanks for your answer!

We currently have a 301 Permanent Redirect for the entire http domain, so the site is only accessible at https. Is it therefore an option to include an canonical that points to https?

[irvingw]

Why was the decision made to move from http to https, most sites only use https for their secure login pages. I'm guessing it was "easier to implement technically" which is why this was redirected that way.

[Onlinq]

True. Nevertheless, is there a problem to have your whole site run under https, and have links to both http and https as long as the http has a permanent redirect to https?

There is no way Google can index pages on http, as it will always redirect to https.

[irvingw]

No, you can do it, but you'll run into some technical issues. For instance try to run this tool on one of your URLs and you'll see it gets rejected.

If you're only making the site https because of a technicaly easier implementation, then I would suggest putting the time in to set the site up right and force https only when secure pages are needed, and force http when coming off of those secure pages

http://www.internetofficer.com/seo-tool/redirect-check/

Response

Checked link: https://site.com
This link does not work.

Error message: Invalid protocol (URL must start with http://)