Question Regarding HTTPS and Analytics.

will subfolder stats appear in stats

[vegasrick]

To comply with the newest edition of Chrome (and firefox), we are making our forum go HTTPS because it has login/password fields.

But the rest of the site is staying under HTTP for the moment, as we have to recode numerous sections and it will take weeks of work and testing.

My question is, because this is only a subfolder of the site, will Analytics view it as a separate website?

Do we have to add "https main website url" even though only a single subsection is being made https or will our stats of that subsection get added to the normal domain URL?

Someone told me no, because that's a different protocol and not a different site (compare to when you use and don't use "www" ), but I just want some confirmation on that.

Also, regarding search analytics on webmaster tools, I was told to create an https:// profile under the main domain but the Google webmaster forum never confirmed if my subfolder forum stats will now shift to there since I'm not making the main url HTTPS.

Any help is appreciated.

[edited by: mademetop at 11:37 am (utc) on Feb 9, 2017]
[edit reason] puctuation [/edit]

[keyplyr]

Hi vegasrick.

Sometimes posts get overlooked on the weekends. I have no experience with only a subfolder using HTTPS. Hopefully someone will come along soon with helpful answers.

[Dimitri]

You can't use HTTPS for a sub folder "only". HTTPS applies to the whole.

Now, if you really want to have your site "non HTTPS", and one of its sub-folder in HTTPS, you need to create two configurations at your server level (apache, nginx, etc...)

1- first configuration, as you have now. And to redirect all requests to the specific folder, and only those, to the HTTPS url.

2- second configuration, identical to the first one, but with the HTTPS attributes, and in this second you have to handle only requests made to this specific sub folder. All other requests will need to be redirected to the "non HTTPS" site.

I am not sure I am clear, because in all event, this is awkward mixture, to try to do so.

But basically :

http: // {example . com} / (untouched)
http: // {example . com} /secure_folder/ => https : // {example . com} /secure_folder/

https: // {example . com} /secure_folder/ (untouched)
https: // {example . com} /other_folder/ => http: // {example . com} /other_folder/

[vegasrick]

Dimitri, I've already been able to accomplish this a week ago with Cloudflare page rules.

I tested everything on two test sections. They were fully https with proper 301s, while the rest of the site was untouched under http (and redirected to http if someone tries https on those pages).

That still doesn't answer my questions regarding Anlystics and Webmaster tools on how they will view those sections in terms of collecting the data. I believe Analytics will view it as the same site, while Webmaster Tools will demand a new site profile is created with https

[mack]

If you use the same code, Analytics will still show page impressions where they occur. http or https.

Regarding webmaster Tools, This will be slightly tricky. When I converted an entire site to https I had to verify it as a new property, even although I had previously verified the same site under http. Webmaster tools does appear to view it as two separate sites, I am not entirely sure how it will handle part of the site being http and part https.

Mack.

[Dimitri]

It's possible to serve different sites depending of the protocole HTTP / HTTPS, exactly as it's possible to server different site for "example{.}com" and "www{.}example{.}com". So it's normal that HTTPS site is seen as a new property.

[vegasrick]

Dmitri, here is what doesn't make sense to me when it comes to search console properties.

The question will have a few turns, so please stay with me.

I've recently converted two subdirectories to HTTPS because they have password fields.

As stated above, the main site, and several sub-sections, are still under HTTP until we re-code our custom CMS which is going to take a few weeks if not a few months.

So I created a new profile as instructed in the search console, with https://www.example.com

Now, when I look in webmaster tools week after week, it continues to say "0" indexed pages under the HTTPS profile, although there is rising organic search traffic in search analytics - and I see our HTTPS pages being indexed in Google when I run various searches.

Also, my main HTTP domain profile is not showing a decrease in indexed pages.

I know the indexed page count of a sub-directory would traditionally be found under the main URL - which in this case would be https//www.example.com. However, although there is a profile for this - this is no https://www.example.com - because my main URL is still under HTTP.

Because my main URL is still HTTP, does that mean the indexed HTTPS pages will still be part of the overall HTTP index count?

My worry, is that my HTTP pages for those subdirectories will begin to drop off from the HTTP profile, but the HTTPS profile (because the main URL is not under HTTPS) will not collect the data on them either.

The overall fear is that would leave that HTTPS index data up in the air and I would never actually know the true index page count of my entire site.

When I look at "crawl stats," the HTTPS and HTTP profiles have identical info, but items like crawl errors are different.

I know a ton of websites have gone through similar scenarios, where only a single section or sections went HTTPS (either for secure purchase areas or member sections) while the main site remained under HTTP. How does the overall indexed page count get tallied under this situation?





[edited by: not2easy at 10:17 am (utc) on Feb 9, 2017]

[edited by: mademetop at 11:39 am (utc) on Feb 9, 2017]
[edit reason] Readability/de-linked with "example.com" [/edit]