HTTP to HTTPS Question

[Ben-R]

Hello,

I have a question regarding SSL Certificates I think I know the answer to but wanted to make sure. One of our clients’ site uses http for their pages but when they started creating Registration forms they created a full duplicate site on https (so now there are two versions of all of the pages).

I know due to duplicate concerns this could be an issue and needs to resolved (as well as the pros and cons of both) but if they are already set up with https does it make sense to just move everything there or in some instances would it pay to keep some pages http (using canonical tags, redirects, htccess…etc)? – Most of the information I found related to making the decision prior to having both or describing the process but I couldn’t find anything that specifically related to if both are already present.

I thought that the best approach because everything’s already set up is to just move everything over to the more secure one but was curious if anybody had any insight?

Thank you in advance.

[ThomasHarvey]

Hi Ben,

Having both running I think is the worst outcome. If you do a site:https://domain.com query what pages show up? If you've got the https pages showing, then you're already indexed. I would personally look at moving fully over to https as long as all of the canonicals etc are all working properly.

Now is the best time to do the migration, due to http->https pages not losing pagerank (or apparently redirects not losing pagerank either)

Tom

[Ben-R]

Thank you Tom for your response. Currently only the http pages come up for the ‘site:’ search. I was considering implementing Search Console on the ‘https’ site to make sure it’s not being indexed…thoughts?

If the https version is not yet being indexed, as a preventative measure should we still migrate the site to the secure version (while pagerank is unaffected) or does it pay to go through every page that does not need it and keep as http?

Thanks again in advance.

Best,

[becole]

Ben, Tom is right. Having both versions out there can lead to duplicate content issues, especially if the site is linking to both versions of the site (which tends to happen). The best option is to make EVERY page on the site HTTPs, and move completely away from HTTP in its entirety. You should set up 301 permanent redirects so that all HTTP pages get redirected to HTTPs.

Don't forget to verify the HTTPs version of the site in Google Search Console, and if you have done anything with the Disavow Tool you'll want to upload a new disavow file for HTTPs, as well.

[Ben-R]

Thank you Bernadette for that response and help. That’s what I thought would be the solution. Am I correct in assuming that because the http version is currently being indexed that there would most likely be an associated temporary drop in results while Google sorts everything out? – Because they are a seasonal-heavy business I’m trying to plan this accordingly so any experience/insight would be appreciated.

Thanks again.