How can Crownpeak DQM help us switch to HTTPS?

In 2014 Google announced that they were starting to use HTTPS as a ranking signal for search. Initially this is described as “only a very lightweight signal”, but over time Google say they may decide to strengthen it.

The prospect of an SEO advantage, however small, is likely to concentrate many site owners’ minds on switching to HTTPS. If you are interested in this, it is definitely worth viewing the presentation “HTTPS everywhere” from “Google I/O 2014” which provides a good summary of the benefits of HTTPS and a step-by-step guide to implementation.

If you are switching to HTTPS, there are some ways in which you can use Crownpeak DQM to help with the process:

1. It is very important to check that none of your links to resources like scripts or images are still served over HTTP, or you may open security holes, produce unwanted “insecure content” pop-ups for your users and confuse search engines by sending conflicting indexing signals. At Crownpeak DQM , we can set up a checkpoint or inventory report in your dashboards to check for any HTTP links on your HTTPS sites to prevent this and ensure that no HTTP links are added over time.
2. It is essential for Google and other search engines that you provide consistent signals that all pages are now HTTPS and that HTTP versions should no longer be indexed. A practice Google recommend, especially for a site newly migrating to HTTPS, is to ensure that a canonical tag is present on every page, indicating that the HTTPS version of the URL is the canonical one – for example <link rel=”canonical” href=”https://example.com/foo”>. We can set up a checkpoint or inventory report in Crownpeak DQM to check that these canonical tags are in place for all pages.
3. Once your sites switch to HTTPS, we would recommend changing your Crownpeak DQM configuration so that it runs over HTTPS too. Please note that Crownpeak DQM login information is already secured by HTTPS by default.

If you have any questions about adding checkpoints or using Crownpeak DQM over HTTPS, then contact our Product Team.