Google has officially announced that HTTPS is a ranking signal

does your website support https if not your seo could suffer

Check List: What to Look During Website Migration from HTTP to HTTPS

Google wants to maintain an industry security standard and due to this reason they have officially announced HTTPS as a small ranking signal. Though we’re not seeing any magic changes in ranking now but probably it would be in near future.

If your website already runs on HTTPS just make sure that you’ve done every potential stuff properly. Here is the checklist created based on the webmaster central blog and through our years of experience.

  • Migrate your website with valid security server
  • Use latest secure hash algorithm and make sure it’s installed properly
  • Do migrate on your local server first to check it
  • Check Response code after migration, It should be Permanent 301
  • Check if current social plugins work properly and update it if required
  • Check if Analytics account tracks your website data correctly after migration
  • Use a valid code to update social media sharing counts
  • Update XML and HTML sitemaps
  • Re-verify your website with Webmaster tool
  • Move your blog permanently on HTTPS if it is integrated separately and don’t forget to check response code
  • Use Qualys Lab tool to get details on technology that protects the Internet

Moving your web site from HTTP to HTTPS

Google has officially announced that HTTPS is a ranking signal and due to this reason numbers of web sites are being moved from HTTP to HTTPS during these days. You need to take care of lots of things during the process otherwise it can be a total mess.

Over the past week, we have successfully moved a Magento web store from HTTP to HTTPS and wanted to share some of the important points with you.

HTTP to HTTPS On Apache Server (301redirection): If you want to redirect from HTTP to HTTPS you can use this code

Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} !^443$

RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.example.com/$1 [R=301,L]

HTTP to HTTPS for WordPress (301 redirection): If you have an eCommerce web store and you have integrated a WordPress blog into it, this code would be useful but make sure to use this code for particular blog’s .htaccess file
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteRule ^ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]

RewriteBase /blog/
RewriteRule ^index.php$ – [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /blog/index.php [L]
</IfModule>

HTTPS to HTTP On Apache Server (301 Redirection) – You can use this code while you want to redirect from HTTPS to HTTP using the .htaccess file:
Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} ^443$ [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTPS} =on
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.example.com/$1 [R=301,L]

HTTPS to HTTP For WordPress (301 redirection) – If you want to move from HTTPS to HTTP for a WordPress blog then you can use this:
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} on
RewriteRule ^ http://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]

RewriteBase /blog/
RewriteRule ^index.php$ – [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /blog/index.php [L]
</IfModule>

Please note that the order of the rewrite conditions and rules mentioned above is of importance. It will not work in some cases if altered.

Are you looking for any other technical solutions for your website that you cannot do yourself? Let’s work together. Post a comment below if you find this post helpful and if you are in need of a similar solution.

If you thinking about moving your website to HTTPS please contact us

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