301 redirect - HTTP / HTTPS question

[timter51]

Any help from you SEO gurus would be grateful here! I have an old website (say domain A) that I changed to a new domain (domain B) a couple of years ago, I set up a whole domain 301 redirect in htaccess, everything went fine. On the current domain, I recently migrated from HTTP to HTTPS. Everything working fine still. However I now have a 301 redirect chain going on:

DomainA.com 301 > http://Domain B.com 301 > https://Domain B.com

Is there any problem in leaving this as is? Should I edit the htaccess on the old domain to 301 to https instead of http?

 

[alex]

My understanding is that your current implementation will work and search engines will see the full chain of redirects.

However, unnecessary redirects add lookup time, so from a speed perspective is not optimal.

If you make DomainA.com https, and redirect it to http DomainB.com, you'll get an insecure message at this point and the browser will stop the redirect onto https.

So the ideal is https Domain A redirecting to https Domain B, with a catchall for any http also redirecting to https.

 

[timter51]

My understanding is that your current implementation will work and search engines will see the full chain of redirects.

However, unnecessary redirects add lookup time, so from a speed perspective is not optimal.

If you make DomainA.com https, and redirect it to http DomainB.com, you'll get an insecure message at this point and the browser will stop the redirect onto https.

So the ideal is https Domain A redirecting to https Domain B, with a catchall for any http also redirecting to https.

Thanks Alex, so changing my 301 on DomainA to redirect to https Domain B instead of http Domain B shouldn't screw anything up in terms of passing "link juice", Moz DA/PA etc?

 

[alex]

Thanks Alex, so changing my 301 on DomainA to redirect to https Domain B instead of http Domain B shouldn't screw anything up in terms of passing "link juice", Moz DA/PA etc?

I wouldn't have thought so. I mean, 301 doesn't pass all 'link juice' (see https://moz.com/learn/seo/redirection), but with https being best practice, and this method reducing the number of redirects I can only assume it's better than chaining it or at least neutral.

 

[lazarus]

Hi Timter,


Just checking as sometimes it gets overlooked... as well as doing the 301's, did you also tell google of the site moves from within your google webmaster tools.

Cheers
Laz

 

[timter51]

Hi Timter,


Just checking as sometimes it gets overlooked... as well as doing the 301's, did you also tell google of the site moves from within your google webmaster tools.

Cheers
Laz

It's funny you mention that! I checked this afternoon and realised that when I set the the first 301 up a couple of years ago, I only did the site move in GWT for the https://www. version of the old domain Every backlink to the old domain is to http, which explains why none of them are showing up in GWT for my new domain even afte 2 years. This was before the "Domain property" option which now exists and covers everything. Apparently I should have added both http and https and www. / non www. records to GWT. Anyway, I've now added the old domain as a "Domain property" and will do the site move in GWT to the https of the new domain, and change the 301 to go straight to the https of the new domain. Getting messy, I have a feeling I'm going to fuck everything up at this rate.