SSL what do I need to do?

[Buzby]

I have just had SSL installed on a website, and under test conditions all seems to be working fine.

I know that I have to change a few other things, and are just asking any advice on this area, and of course if I have missed something.

Things I need to do:

1) Change Robots file to disallow HTTP

2) Set up new Robots file for SSL with all my settings in.

3) Setup .htaccess file to change http to https and all other variants to point to https://www.mydomain.co.uk

4) Change my preferred option of https in webmaster tools.

Also, does anyone know of any good sites for generating the above files?

Any help would be appreciated.

[EdHarrison]

Do you need the htaccess for rewriting http to https? Or have yo done that bit?

I did not do any robots at all BTW

[Buzby]

Hi Ed,

I do need to write it all, although shouldn't be too difficult as lots of examples out there.

[EdHarrison]

RewriteEngine On

#First rewrite any request to the wrong domain to use the correct one (here www.)
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]

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

[Buzby]

Many thanks Ed, that worked.

[chickenhouseman]

I don't think you need to touch the robot file. You want search engines to find the http has changed to https via the 301. I'm not even sure that it's possible to do as the files stay in the same place on the server.

The other thing you want to do is update any internal, manually created links. You can do this by exporting the catalog as a csv, use find and replace to make the changes and then import back. Obviously, creating a snapshot before is sensible. If you then scan the site with seobility.com it will catch any internal redirects you've missed.

[EdHarrison]

Agreed - mine works fine and never been anywhere near a robots file, just the htaccess and yes the internal links are better changed but the htaccess also takes care of those.

[chickenhouseman]

the only thing in my robots.txt is the sitemap url.

I did run a scan though seobility - there are a few issues.... about 50 internal redirects that haven't been updated.

There are duplicate pages caused by the cgi-bin links. If i can't change them to an absolute url then I've had them no followed. This may be due to the pagination and it might be something you need (i don't use pagination) but, if possible, it's never a good idea to have to more than one link to the same content.

there are also 90 looping redirects <link rel="canonical" href="http://www.qualitysilver.co.uk/Jewellery/Kit-Heath-Silver-Heart-Bracelet-7098.html"> is found on the https version somewhere that hasn't been updated correctly. This doesn't change the operation but may have an SEO effect.

[Buzby]

Many thanhks to you both, you have been most helful.

Chickenhouseman, many thanks for that, will have to dive deeper.

[chickenhouseman]

here you are:

[Buzby]

Many thanks for that, some interesting reading, and a lot of changes to be made.

Think I will have to open an account.

[chickenhouseman]

yes, a useful tool. the free account scans 1000 pages once a week. I think it then tells you a few of each type of error so if it's a long term project that isn't too big you can get away with just the free option. The paid version lets you monitor 3 sites without limits hence i have a spare slot i can use on other people's sites.