iGB Affiliate 63 June/July | Page 25

TRAFFIC Figure 4: Example of structured data overview with errors in Google Search Console Figure 2: Example of the Index Status of a new HTTPS website in Google Search Console Figure 3: Example of how fast Googlebot is downloading a page Figure 5: Example of structured data overview with errors in Google Search Console Monitor Google Search Console To monitor the indexation numbers of the HTTP and the HTTPS versions, keep an eye on all submitted XML sitemaps. This, combined with the Google Index Status, as reported in Google Search Console, will indicate how many of the URLs of the HTTP version are being de-indexed and updated to the HTTPS version (see Figure 2). Also monitor the crawl stats overview of the relevant HTTP and HTTPS versions for crawl speed and make sure the infrastructure responds fast to Googlebot (see Figure 3). If needed, and when possible, consider adding additional and more powerful server instances with improved network speed connections to the infrastructure for the next few months while Googlebot recrawls both the HTTP and the HTTPS versions of the website. If this has any effect on getting the website faster crawled, it will only be visible in the crawl stats and server log files. Monitor the AMP overview, rich cards overview and structured data overview of the HTTPS version in Google Search “ Not every website needs to undergo the switch to HTTPS. However, from a user experience and an SEO perspective, website owners can no longer ignore HTTPS” Console to see if any indexation issues pop up, such as errors and the speed of finding the data. If they do, fix these as soon as possible (see Figure 4). Monitor the crawl errors overview of the relevant HTTP and HTTPS versions in Google Search Console to see if there are any issues with server errors (50x), not found (404), connection issues and soft 404s 8 for desktop, feature phones and/or smartphones (see Figure 5). If any server errors, connection issues or soft 404s appear, especially on the HTTPS version, fix these as soon as possible. Highlighted not found errors may be a false alarm, but make sure these are not unexpected, and check why they are occurring and if they need fixing. 9 Last but not least, monitor search analytics in Google Search Console. Earlier in this guide, different sets have been created to group the different properties. This includes one set with all the relevant properties to this content move of the HTTP and HTTPS versions. Now, it is time to reap the benefits of doing this. By combining all the relevant HTTP and HTTPS properties, it is possible to track in Google Search Analytics the overall impact of the move to HTTPS in the Google rankings, according to Google itself. When content is moved from HTTP to HTTPS, in each Google Search Console property the Search Analytics are only recorded and shared for that particular 8 https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/181708 https://developers.google.com/webmaster-tools/search-console-api-original/v3/searchanalytics iGB Affiliate Issue 63 JUN/JUL 2017 21