The procedure that preserves search position.
BEFORE
Take a full backup Note your current rankings and traffic for comparison Plan it for a quiet period, not before a campaign
THE STEPS
- Issue the certificate with AutoSSL.
- Update the application's site address to https.
- Run a database search and replace for internal http URLs.
- Enable a single 301 redirect from http to https.
- Update canonical tags, which usually follow the site address.
- Update the sitemap to https URLs.
- Check for mixed content and fix it.
- Add the https property in Search Console.
- Submit the updated sitemap.
- Update robots.txt if it references absolute URLs.
AFTERWARDS
Watch Search Console for crawl errors over the following weeks Expect a brief fluctuation while pages are recrawled Check that indexed pages transition to the https versions
WHAT LOSES RANKINGS
Missing redirects on some URLs Redirect chains rather than single hops Canonical tags still pointing at http Blocking the https version in robots.txt by accident
