Do you work on a big company site where everything is within the secure protocol? If so, these are what you have to keep in mind for your onsite optimization:
- If done right, an https site can rank as well as an http site.
- Keep all your certificates valid, all the time, 24/7/365.
- Https sites are more work for the servers, so there is the possibility of a slower download. Keep your site and the certificate on a high performance host. If it takes too long to download a site Googlebot might go bye bye.
- The https-site and the http-site are two completely different sites; it’s a little bit like having a www version of the site and a non-www version. Make sure you have 301 redirects from the http URLs to the https ones.
- The robots.txt is only valid if placed within the same protocol as the site. Place it within the https protocol.
- The same goes for the sitemap.xml, Google verification file, and the other stuff.
Additionally: Keep all your files (images, iframes, etc) within the https protocol. There still is a nasty pop-up in Internet Explorer (6, maybe 7 too) if done otherwise.
Maybe there is a fall off in click- through due to the display of the https:// part in front of the www (which does not happen for http:// sites). Does anybody has information about this?
thx for your screentime,
FranzSEO
