VirtueMart Forum

VirtueMart 2 + 3 + 4 => Security (https) / Performance / SEO, SEF, URLs => Topic started by: EvanGR on September 04, 2015, 11:00:15 AM

Title: Moving to https, pain expected?
Post by: EvanGR on September 04, 2015, 11:00:15 AM
[J2.5.28 + VM 2.6.18]

Hello,

What kind of pain is expected by moving an existing VM site over to https?

Doing pre-planning currently, and want to identify areas of potential trouble.

Thanks you
Title: Re: Moving to https, pain expected?
Post by: GJC Web Design on September 04, 2015, 12:51:20 PM
have done a few on both VM2 & 3 and have had no problems

Just set Joomla force SSL everywhere
Title: Re: Moving to https, pain expected?
Post by: Nilu on October 14, 2015, 10:33:26 AM
If you are moving to https just for SEO benefit then don't do it because no one got ranking boost till date after moving to https....
Title: Re: Moving to https, pain expected?
Post by: GJC Web Design on October 14, 2015, 10:35:28 AM
and there is the negative performance hit to consider as well
Title: Re: Moving to https, pain expected?
Post by: AH on October 14, 2015, 11:19:10 AM
Also remember to do a site wide 301 redirect from http to https  as google sees the https pages as separate from http pages

If you don't you will lose all your existing rankings
Title: Re: Moving to https, pain expected?
Post by: EvanGR on February 05, 2016, 11:23:08 AM
Thank you all.

@AH

Any example on how to do this from .htaccess? I have some code that adds the www. to the URL (if missing), that might take care of it I am not sure. When I go to the products from a google search, they land correctly on the https page.
Title: Re: Moving to https, pain expected?
Post by: AH on February 05, 2016, 18:18:02 PM
Evan

You are best to use google to find examples of how to do this
Title: Re: Moving to https, pain expected?
Post by: EvanGR on February 08, 2016, 11:12:58 AM
I used Joomla's own "Force SSL" option. This seems to handle the redirects automatically (http addresses change to https). Which is why I found your post curious and had to ask if there was a better way.

Regarding the topic of this thread, I switched a website to https with only minor issues. Any templates/extensions which use http to fetch external data, should switch to https.

For anyone wanting to offer both http and https versions of the website, you may need to create separate entries for each version in google webmaster tools. As AH also posted, http and https pages are considered different by Google.
Title: Re: Moving to https, pain expected?
Post by: AH on February 08, 2016, 12:21:05 PM
Have you checked to see if this option is doing a redirect as 301  "moved permanently"

https://issues.joomla.org/tracker/joomla-cms/6646 (https://issues.joomla.org/tracker/joomla-cms/6646)

Title: Re: Moving to https, pain expected?
Post by: GJC Web Design on February 08, 2016, 13:20:17 PM
sadly it appears not

gives a 303 other on my test

joomla site wide force ssl.. test with a non https url

perhaps someone with more patience than me can tell us HOW you get the 2 patched files out of such an unintuitive bollocks like github?

https://issues.joomla.org/tracker/joomla-cms/6646
Title: Re: Moving to https, pain expected?
Post by: AH on February 08, 2016, 18:06:14 PM
would be easier and more persistent to do it in an .htaccess file
Title: Re: Moving to https, pain expected?
Post by: jenkinhill on February 08, 2016, 18:10:26 PM
Somethink like:

RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
# First rewrite to HTTPS:
# Don't put www. here. If it is already there it will be included, if not
# the subsequent rule will catch it.
RewriteRule .* https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]
# Now, rewrite any request to the wrong domain to use www.
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.
RewriteRule .* https://www.%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]
Title: Re: Moving to https, pain expected?
Post by: AH on February 08, 2016, 22:05:02 PM
Unless of course you choose not to use WWW in your domain - as preferred by many sites

Then you need a different rewrite rule :-)