URL Re-Writes & HTTPS: Link juice loss from 301s?

TheDude

Our URLs are not following a lot of the best practices found here: http://moz.com/blog/11-best-practices-for-urls

We have also been waiting to implement HTTPS.

I think it might be time to take the plunge on re-writing the URLs and converting to a fully secure site, but I am concerned about ranking dips from the lost link juice from the 301s. Many of our URLs are very old, with a decent amount of quality links.

Are we better off leaving as is or taking the plunge?

Ray-pp

The benefit in the ranking influence for http / https sites is still unclear. Many SEOs are still holding off on this conversion to see what its impact, hopefully measurable, may end up being.

Moz has a great post on Https necessities and practices here: http://moz.com/blog/seo-tips-https-ssl

If it is going to be an intense project (costs an mount of money that makes you question its worth), I would hold off until more information is exposed about https as a ranking factor. If the conversion is easy, then I would get it implemented now and reap any benefits that come from https.

max.favilli

In my experience the power of proper url, with the right keywords in the right place, is so great I wouldn't wait a second before to fix them.

Again based on my experience I never noticed a decrease in ranking due to 301.

I recently moved three websites from http to https and I didn't notice any decrease in ranking I could associate with the redirect.

Of course since we daily work on improving ranking is hard to distinguish a small decrease due to 301 from the general improvement.

Toddfoster

301's of any kind can result in a slight decrease in "link-juice" moving forward, although it can be hard to determine exactly how much (not a large amount relatively speaking). That being said, as Massimiliano stated, I haven't personally come across this scenario in my work.

The HTTP/HTTPS debate is still going and as Ray said, it might be best to adopt a "wait and see" strategy.

Of these things, you have pointed out that your urls do not follow best practices stated in the link - it is likely that new urls combined with 301 redirects to HTTPS will not hurt your rankings and may in fact help you. As Ray stated, it is about cost and whether you think the potential rankings are worth the time, effort and money you will spend making it happen.

TheDude

My thinking is that the potential for increase in CTR in the SERPS can have a greater affect than the potential 301 harm.

I notice many of you are still waiting for the jury to be a bit more conclusive on whether to move to HTTPS. However, if I'm redirecting all pages using Moz's bes practice, shouldn't I just take the HTTPS plunge at the same time? Is there any reason not to?

Toddfoster

The only downside to that approach is if there is no benefit to moving to HTTPS, you have wasted time (if that was the only reason for you doing so). However, if you are using 301's either way, you may as well move to HTTPS - it won't hurt you and it might help you.

max.favilli

In addition to what Robert just said. If you add a 301 now to format url properly, and later add a second 301 to move to HTTPS, you will add redirect to redirect losing that little bit of page juice twice.

Ray-pp

If youre going to be updating your URLs for best-practices, I would incorporate the conversion to https as well - do it all in one shot, as you've said.

Just ensure you're implementing 301 redirects properly. Not doing so can have disastrous results.