SERPs Update?

An update on July 7th or just my site?

[jbnz]

Hi all, my site lost 75% of its Bing traffic on July 7th.

Did anyone else experience a shift in Bing rankings around that date?

Other than creating new posts on the site, the only other change was a move to https on June 27th. Anyone experience issues with Bing rankings after a move to https?

Cheers
John

[keyplyr]

Hi jbnz, I'm not aware of an index update for Bing, but to be honest I don't keep track.

On the issue of upgrading your page protocol from HTTP to HTTPS, done correctly there should be absolutly no effect whatsoever with any SE indexing, besides the promised slight boost by Google.

Any change in Google referred traffic?

Since the events are so close together, that's what I'd focus on. Check to see if all your pages are redirecting correctly.

Here's a checklist:

- Generic Steps to Switch from HTTP to HTTPS -

• Read all info at your host concerning certificates & switching to HTTPS and when applicable, follow those instructions.

• Install security certificate.

• Have you host enable HTTPS (if needed.) This will enable access from both HTTP & HTTPS.

• Go through site, page by page & make sure all file paths are relative (no protocol.) Test by accessing site using HTTPS and look for any browser alerts.

• Install 301 code in .htaccess file

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !=on
RewriteRule ^ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]

Note: your server may require a different code

• Go through site again, page by page, and test. Any remote absolute links will need to be HTTPS including those found in scripts & plug-ins. If you publish Adsense or other advertising, links in these scripts need to be HTTPS also (or just remove the protocol altogether.)

• Update sitemap.xml (if applicable) and submit to appropriate agencies (Google, Bing, Yandex, etc)

• In Google Search Council create a new site using HTTPS (do not use the Change of Address form.) It will take a few days to start populating information. This is normal & traffic to old site (HTTP) will drop off accordingly.

• Bing Webmaster Tools, Yandex & others should update automatically once they crawl your new pages. Updating/re-submitting sitemap.xml should speed up this process.

[jbnz]

Hi keyplyr,

Everything looks good for the https move in terms of the site redirecting properly.

From a Google perspective (the site doesn't receive much Google traffic) the https sitemap has slowly had its pages indexed and the https pages get as much traffic as the http pages used to, albeit a small amount compared to traffic from BIng (as it was). As the https traffic increased the http traffic decreased.

I did get warnings about site speed on two pages in Google Search Console which I will look into, but even with this, Google appears unaffected.

I can't seem to find much out from Bing webmaster other than the https sitemap and its urls have been submitted. It did highlight a couple of internal links that were 404s but none of the pages involved were any of the main Bing SERPs pages.

I'm just stumped and I really don't want to blame the https move, especially as I'm on the verge of moving my main site, although the traffic for that site is more Google-based.