Dropped out of rankings after changing to secure site

Forum Moderators: phranque

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Dropped out of rankings after changing to secure site

Surprised this happened

CrimsonGirl

2:02 am on Nov 10, 2018 (gmt 0)

I changed one of my sites to a secure a couple weeks ago. My site has disappeared from Google SERPs for my main keyword. I have to think there is a connection.

The last time this happened was about 15 years ago. Then it was a canonical URL problem. Not sure what this was about this time. I did a 301 redirect to the secure site with .htaccess. The site is about 20 years old, and have many old inbound links to the non-secure URL.

Can I expect this problem to resolve itself on its own?

Thanks for any insight.

phranque

2:46 am on Nov 10, 2018 (gmt 0)

are you tracking both properties in GSC?

not2easy

3:16 am on Nov 10, 2018 (gmt 0)

Like phranque, I'm wondering if you've added this "new" property to your GSC account? If you have "both" domains in your GSC account you should be able to easily spot any problems.

Your 301 rewrite should be rewriting the incoming requests. If you type (or paste) in an URL using http, it should be giving you that page with https.

justpassing

12:42 pm on Nov 10, 2018 (gmt 0)

Be sure that your canonical links are not pointing to your non HTTP pages...

tangor

1:52 am on Nov 11, 2018 (gmt 0)

While HTTP to HTTPS is a protocol change, in some reports over the last few years it appears g, in particular, treats it as a "new site" ... and the attendant problems thereof. Others have made the change an report nothing different.

Make sure you have done everything correctly and ... wait to see what happens. Nothing you can do, other than making sure you did it right. G will catch up (or not) ... it's a krap shoot no matter what you do.

Sadly (though it needs be done to fit the new web), "if it ain't broke don't fix it" comes into play.

CrimsonGirl

2:54 am on Nov 12, 2018 (gmt 0)

Yes, I am tracking both properties in GSC, and indeed the number of pages in the nonsecure site has been falling as the number on the secure site has been rising.

" If you type (or paste) in an URL using http, it should be giving you that page with https." Yes, it is. I believe the redirect is working correctly.

"your canonical links are not pointing to your non HTTP pages..." Not sure what that means. Year ago I had <link rel="canonical" href="http://example.com/> on my home page, but took that off a long time ago. Do you think it would help?

The inbound links from other sites - all of them are pointing to the non HTTP pages. Nothing I can do about that except on the few inbound links from my own sites (which I doubt Google counts for much.)

not2easy

3:12 am on Nov 12, 2018 (gmt 0)

I've seen some loss due to Mobile First indexing, which is very gradually returning to 'normal'. It could be a combination of the two changes overlapping? Was your site already included in Mobile First? They send a notification when that takes place, so you would know whether it was anywhere near the same time as the https change.

justpassing

4:18 pm on Nov 12, 2018 (gmt 0)

<link rel="canonical" href="http://example.com/xxx>

should be

<link rel="canonical" href="https://example.com/xxx>

But since you have no more canonical links, this shouldn't be a problem.

Also verify that your internal navigation links are not pointing to your non-HTTPS site. The links will work, since you set up redirects, but this can be a negative point for Google.

Check if your site speed has changed in a significant way. Speed is one (among hundreds) of factors that Google takes in consideration. On old hardware (servers), the switch to HTTPS can slowdown a site a lot, due to the encryption.

As not2easy said, this can also be the result of several different and unrelated events. Mobile first index, "medic" update, etc...