SEO and SSL

[empresa87]

Hello everyone,

I've been doing link building a few months back here for my main keyword and was already in the 4th place google for more than 6 months.
To help I decided a few weeks ago to install an ssl certificate. However I have noticed a slight increase in visits, but still too early to say if it is the case of the ssl certificate.
The bad part is that I have lost positions on my main keyword, something that had not happened before. Is it related to ssl? It's normal?


Thanks

 

[paul1129]

Its tend to happen when you install SSL. They are for security measures. I will say that if your site don't do any money transactions then why do it, in the first place.

 

[SEOPub]

I would hope you did a 301 redirect of HTTP to HTTPS. If not, expect to see your rankings plummet.

And even if you did, you are likely to see some fluctuations as Google sorts it out.

 

[paul1129]

paul1129

You are right.

301 redirects always loose some link juice as of the original page.

 

[SEOPub]

SEOPub

They may have at one time, but I see zero evidence that they do anymore. I've moved some complete sites to new domains with no loss of rankings.

 

[paul1129]

paul1129

Well what I have seen is that reputed sites only gets it done perfectly. As in 'SEO MOZ became MOZ', 'PublicityClerks became Adclerks'.

 

[empresa87]

I use the Really Simple SSL plugin and I think it already does the 302 redirect.

In my .htaccess among other things I have this:

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !=on [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L]
</IfModule>
# END rlrssslReallySimpleSSL
# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>

 

[RenderedElite]

It definitely helps. I have seen a huge increase in traffic on my main money site after setting up an SSL certificate and I highly recommend everyone else does this if they haven't yet.

 

[empresa87]

empresa87

I agree with you, all the articles I have read say the same and google itself. When you switched to SSL did you feel any instability in the positions?