Moving to HTTPS: Tips for Success #FOS17

Moving to HTTPS Tips for Success

#httpsmigration at #FOS17 by @aleyda from @orainti

Hallo #FOS17

#httpsmigration at #FOS17 by @aleyda from @orainti

I’m Aleyda Solis

#httpsmigration at #FOS17 by @aleyda from @orainti

ORAINTI.COM @ALEYDA FB.COM/ALEYDASEOTIPS/

I Do SEO

BITLY.COM/LIBROSEOALEYDA

I’m Aleyda Solis

I PublishI Share

#httpsmigration at #FOS17 by @aleyda from @orainti

I Blog I Speak I’m Featured

I’m Aleyda Solis

#httpsmigration at #FOS17 by @aleyda from @orainti

I help my clients move to HTTPS

#httpsmigration at #FOS17 by @aleyda from @orainti

https://letsencrypt.org/stats/

Over 50% of the pages loaded by Firefox are now using HTTPS

#httpsmigration at #FOS17 by @aleyda from @orainti

bit.ly/spreadhttps

HTTPS is already becoming the “default” in top SERPs

#httpsmigration at #FOS17 by @aleyda from @orainti

It’s about security, users safety, trust & experience

#httpsmigration at #FOS17 by @aleyda from @orainti

The perfect opportunity to start using HTTP/2 & improve your site speed too

bit.ly/http2seo

#httpsmigration at #FOS17 by @aleyda from @orainti

Provide another Positive Ranking signal

#httpsmigration at #FOS17 by @aleyda from @orainti

The goal is that your users can browse securely, earning their trust

#httpsmigration at #FOS17 by @aleyda from @orainti

Instead of this :(

#httpsmigration at #FOS17 by @aleyda from @orainti

While also migrating your rankings & traffic from your HTTP to HTTPS URLs

#httpsmigration at #FOS17 by @aleyda from @orainti

Without traffic drops

#httpsmigration at #FOS17 by @aleyda from @orainti

Instead of this

#httpsmigration at #FOS17 by @aleyda from @orainti

bit.ly/httpsmigration

Let’s see the most critical steps as well as dos & dont’s to maximize chances of success

#httpsmigration at #FOS17 by @aleyda from @orainti

Before Moving

#httpsmigration at #FOS17 by @aleyda from @orainti

Don’t show and allow access to content via your HTTPS version if you haven’t migrated yet

#httpsmigration at #FOS17 by @aleyda from @orainti

You want to avoid having mixed indexation, cannibalization & content duplication issues

#httpsmigration at #FOS17 by @aleyda from @orainti

Make sure to canonicalize and refer consistently to your HTTP URLs

301-redirect Canonicalize LinkInclude in

XML Sitemaps

HTTP#httpsmigration at #FOS17 by @aleyda from @orainti

To later facilitate the migration towards HTTPS

301-redirect Canonicalize LinkInclude in

XML Sitemaps

HTTP HTTPS#httpsmigration at #FOS17 by @aleyda from @orainti

Create GSC profiles for your HTTPS domains & subdomains to start monitoring them

#httpsmigration at #FOS17 by @aleyda from @orainti

Don’t mix HTTPs migrations with other structural Web changes

#httpsmigration at #FOS17 by @aleyda from @orainti

Verify the type of SSL Certificate you need, like wildcard ones for multiple subdomains

sslshopper.com

#httpsmigration at #FOS17 by @aleyda from @orainti

It doesn’t need to be expensive! You can even do it for free by using Cloudfare

bit.ly/freehttps

#httpsmigration at #FOS17 by @aleyda from @orainti

Check with your hosting provider if they offer them, as it might be easier to enable it too

#httpsmigration at #FOS17 by @aleyda from @orainti

If you work with CDNs you will also need to activate it for your subdomains zones

#httpsmigration at #FOS17 by @aleyda from @orainti

Create a list of your top pages from a visibility & conversion perspective to monitor closely

#httpsmigration at #FOS17 by @aleyda from @orainti

When Moving

#httpsmigration at #FOS17 by @aleyda from @orainti

https://www.sslshopper.com/ssl-checker.html

Make sure that the SSL certificate is effectively installed

#httpsmigration at #FOS17 by @aleyda from @orainti

For HTTP to HTTPS migrations you can’t use GSC “Change of address” feature

#httpsmigration at #FOS17 by @aleyda from @orainti

You need to 301-redirect, canonicalize, link and refer to your HTTPs URLs consistently

301-redirect Canonicalize LinkInclude in

XML Sitemaps

HTTPSHTTP#httpsmigration at #FOS17 by @aleyda from @orainti

Update your canonical & hreflang tags so they refer to the HTTPS URLs

#httpsmigration at #FOS17 by @aleyda from @orainti

Don’t do this

If your links use absolute URLs they need to be updated with your HTTPS ones

#httpsmigration at #FOS17 by @aleyda from @orainti

Don’t do this

Generate a new XML sitemap with your HTTPS URLs

Don’t do this

#httpsmigration at #FOS17 by @aleyda from @orainti

Implement 301-redirect from each of your HTTP URLs to their HTTPS versions

bit.ly/redirectgenerator

#httpsmigration at #FOS17 by @aleyda from @orainti

http://searchengineland.com/chromes-devtools-seo-10-ways-use-seo-audits-266433

Be careful if you’re hotlinking, all resources (images, css, js) need to be moved to HTTPS too

#httpsmigration at #FOS17 by @aleyda from @orainti

Don’t do this

Remember these should be permanent 301-redirects & not 302s

#httpsmigration at #FOS17 by @aleyda from @orainti

Make sure to also update your robots.txt to your HTTPS domain & update URLs if needed

#httpsmigration at #FOS17 by @aleyda from @orainti

If you use Wordpress there’s a plugin that facilitates it

https://es.wordpress.org/plugins/really-simple-ssl/

#httpsmigration at #FOS17 by @aleyda from @orainti

After Moving

#httpsmigration at #FOS17 by @aleyda from @orainti

Validate your SSL certificate & secure content status

https://www.whynopadlock.com/

#httpsmigration at #FOS17 by @aleyda from @orainti

Crawl your migrated site emulating both desktop & smartphone Googlebots

#httpsmigration at #FOS17 by @aleyda from @orainti

Do also a list crawl of those top pages that you wanted to prioritize

#httpsmigration at #FOS17 by @aleyda from @orainti

Have all URLs been migrated? Is there a performance change?

#httpsmigration at #FOS17 by @aleyda from @orainti

Do you find HTTP URLs in the crawl? Errors, redirects & canonicalization issues?

#httpsmigration at #FOS17 by @aleyda from @orainti

See which old HTTP URLs you’re still linking, if they’re showing errors or are redirected

#httpsmigration at #FOS17 by @aleyda from @orainti

Do the same looking for canonical tags pointing to old HTTP URLs

#httpsmigration at #FOS17 by @aleyda from @orainti

Have XML sitemaps also been updated? What’s the gap vs. the crawled URLs?

#httpsmigration at #FOS17 by @aleyda from @orainti

Check if the Page-to-Page Redirects are Effectively Implemented with 301s

#httpsmigration at #FOS17 by @aleyda from @orainti

Don’t do this

… and that they’re redirecting to the relevant and indexable HTTPS URLs

#httpsmigration at #FOS17 by @aleyda from @orainti

Don’t do this

That there are no chain redirects between them

#httpsmigration at #FOS17 by @aleyda from @orainti

Don’t do this

For independent mobile sites, verify redirects and rel alternates & canonicals w/ desktop

#httpsmigration at #FOS17 by @aleyda from @orainti

Don’t do this

Prioritize to fix pages w/ erroneous protocol, status & canonicalization w/ high traffic

#httpsmigration at #FOS17 by @aleyda from @orainti

Look for orphan URLs by identifying which URLs with organic traffic are not in the crawl

#httpsmigration at #FOS17 by @aleyda from @orainti

Once fixed, you can submit your HTTP & HTTPS URLs & XML sitemaps to be re-crawled

#httpsmigration at #FOS17 by @aleyda from @orainti

Check in your log files for googlebot “before” & “after” behavior & crawled URLs

#httpsmigration at #FOS17 by @aleyda from @orainti

Screaming Frog Log Analyzer

And start monitoring how your index statusmoves to HTTPS in Google Search Console

#httpsmigration at #FOS17 by @aleyda from @orainti

Dank Je!

#httpsmigration at #FOS17 by @aleyda from @orainti