HTTP/HTTPS duplicate content 301 vs canonical

Question

I thought I would ask a question as the amount of different sources that say this is right or that isn't right is unbelievable.

Let me tell you my situation, at the moment, my boss wanted me to add SSL to the website, to get the green padlock more or less. I've done this, while also using .htaccess file to force HTTPS.

The main problem is that Google is seeing http://site.co.uk and https://site.co.uk and is indexing them.

Will the page rank carry over from http://site.co.uk to https://site.co.uk using a permemant 301 redirection or would a canonical set to https://site.co.uk work just as well?

Answer 1

This depends if you want the site to be accessible via both http and https. (This may be the case if you only want https active once users login).

If you don't need both http and https accessible then a 301 redirect from http and https is the correct thing to do.

301 redirects are preferable, as they will carry over most of the PageRank and canonical tags are only a hint to Google, not an absolute directive, although they do try to follow them where possible

If you do however need both http and https accessible then canonical tags would be the correct thing to do, as if you set 301 redirects, http wont be accessible as they will redirect to https

Also, ensure to reflect your redirects or canonicals in your sites internal linking and sitemap.xml file. - Stick to one type of linking, e.g all link are defined with https in site structure and in the sitemap.xml file.