My webhost forced our site to secure but my 301 redirects seem to be redirecting to the same old page, as in looping. Is there a solution to this? It seems that we have lost our organic 1st place ranking that we enjoyed for over 25 years and the few pages ranking are to the former insecure site! We've recreated our site map to the https but it doesn't seem to be making any difference as searches in both Google and Bing keep coming up with the old linking!
Suggestions?
can you post examples of links old and new ?
who did the 301, them or you, and have you added https as a site in google analytics/webmaster tools
search in google
site:http://someold link to your site
site:https://someold link to your site
the same link to see what is crawled
Thanks for coming back John.
Our website is creativecompliments.com . We are located in Saskatoon, SK., Canada where we provide gift baskets and flowers.
It was http://www.creativecompliments.combut after our webhosts forced it to secure it is now https://www.creativecompliments.com. That said, the former insecure site redirects to the secure one but to just creativecompliments.com . Prevous to the forcing for the last 25 years our site has organically ranked #1 in both Google and Bing but not anymore!
If you search for the most common search phrase "gift baskets Saskatoon", in Bing the results are: https://www.bing.com/search?form=MOZSBR&pc=MOZI&q=gift+baskets+saskatoon and in Google, the result is https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=gift+baskets+saskatoon here the only link other than the mapped link, is near trhe page bottom. In both cases the links are to the old unsecure site despite that the sitemap is secure when found at creativecompliments.com/sitemap.xml . I've had to manually make each link read https because when generated from the site's Google sitemap add-on it is http (insecure).
Further, we've discovered that in the header on the pages it reads "<meta name="robots" content="noindex,nofollow" /> and Google have come back to us indicating that it is hampering their crawling. We've tried to correct this in both our site's cpanel and through our ftp program but cannot access the website's head to do so. WE've found the robots.txt file, seem to have changed it but the <meta name="robots" content="noindex,nofollow" /> remains.
Regarding the redirects, we've done nothing to put those in place and the page where they appear seems to indicate the link of the old URL is redirecting to itself and we can't change that!
If you can assist or guide us we'd be extremely grateful
please makes sure to try on dev first or backup all files before changing.
Ok first things first check /design/themes/responsive/templates/meta.tpl ( or what theme you use instead of responsive) and check for the noindex no follow and change it to follow.(or comment it out I think is can be used) This is where you are acessing the "websites head"
or if you have the mychanges addon enabled or want to use the mychanges addon then
design/themes/YOUR_THEME/templates/addons/my_changes/hooks/index/meta.post.tpl
you may need to create the meta.post.tpl file and directories as you go
this may help https://forum.cs-cart.com/topic/45375-index-follow/
and this https://docs.cs-cart.com/latest/user_guide/addons/my_changes/index.html
2nd, have you listed https; version in Webmaster tools and claimed the site, this is important.
How long ago did you do the redirect from http to https, if all the things are pointing correctly then a little dip for a few days will possibly happen but ranking should recover (nail biting time I know) but usually does.
I see the https and http list are both indexed as 519 pages
https://prnt.sc/u8jc62
I have a feeling correcting the meta.tpl file and making sure you have the second url listed in WM tools( the https version), will result in your ranking back up in days and all https links indexed better https://prnt.sc/u8jggh
Your sitemap redrects for me to https
:)
my meta.tpl shows this
{hook name="index:meta"}
{if $display_base_href}
{/if}
{hook name="index:meta_description"}
{/hook}
{/hook}
{$location_data.custom_html nofilter}
Regarding Meta.pl . . . Below is what it reads (no mention of the "noindex, nofollow" tagging):
{hook name="index:meta"}
{if $display_base_href}
{/if}
{hook name="index:meta_description"}
{/hook}
{/hook}
{$location_data.custom_html nofilter}
Regarding "My Changes" add-on shows it's installed and active however when I go to it I get a red round circle with line throught it and it's not workable
Yes we have listed and clained the site in the webmaster tools.
The real issue I'm convinced is the "noindex,nofollow" robots meta but we seem powerless to change it!
needs someone to check on your server , yes i too think sort the meta.tpl and your done.
have you gone through the mychanges directory via ftp to see if you have meta.post.tpl
Have gone to webhost about server.
MyChanges by FTP not responsive
I really appreciate your help. Your efforts have been awesome!
Now, it must surely be time for a Tetley over your way so enjoy before zzzzzzzzzzz!