Switching from HTTP to HTTPS

ausername · Nov 23, 2017

I've got a large(ish) site at the moment which isn't on https.

Its a wordpress site and hosted with Bluehost, and they offer a free SSL and all I need to do is push a button.

But I've got a few nice deep backlinks dotted around which obviously use the http URL.

Am I going to mess these up / lose juice if my URL changes to https? Anybody know whether it will either automatically redirect to the https when somebody clicks through or whether I have to do this manually / perform some sort of painstaking task?

Been putting this off a bit as I'm out my depth, stupid not to just build on https from the start but it was a minor ranking signal at the time and I think it has gained importance as time as progressed.

ausername · Nov 23, 2017

Some sort of rewrite in the .htaccess suffice, for people who have done this before?

dee · Nov 23, 2017

Code:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]

I think....google

I use SSL Insecure Content Fixer plug in aswell for wordpress. Works Fab !

AlistairM · Nov 23, 2017

I've changed a couple of sites over, didn't have any noticeable negative impact, in fact it did seem to have a little boost but might have been something else.

I referred to the following page (there may be better) when I did it as I'm no expert. https://www.bram.us/2014/12/06/migrating-your-wordpress-website-from-http-to-https/

Also when I did it I also used the following site to check as I had a warning and this showed me what the issues (minor) were. https://www.whynopadlock.com/

I have the below in my htaccess to redirect http to https but not sure whether it works the same on all servers?

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteRule (.*) https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L]

ausername · Nov 23, 2017

Thanks guys, encouraging that you both have similar in your .htaccess and that its the same code I found when googling. May actually open a support ticket with my host to see if they have a standard reply for this, as they must get this question a fair bit.

ausername · Dec 27, 2017

Finally did this on boxing day (I know, I'm a saddo!).

What a ballache to do for an already developed site, my fault though as https was growing when I started it. Had to try and change facebook/twitter/youtube/google+ links to https etc, also have a few domains pointed for juice etc.... took me about 6 hours

Annoyingly added a bit of time to page speed (made it a bit slower), although no noticeable change in traffic yet. Is nice seeing the word "secure" in the browser though.