Note: HTTPS was introduced to Bandzoogle accounts in 2017. Any Bandzoogle websites started after January 2017 do not need to perform these updates.

Having your website load as an HTTPS link means search engines will rank the site higher in results. It also provides additional security both for you and your site visitors. For more information about this, please view the ‘HTTPS Introduction’ post.

For Bandzoogle accounts started prior to January 2017, please follow these steps to ensure that your site ranking and reporting continues to run smoothly with our addition of an https version of your website’s domain name.

Sitemap Update

Re-submit your sitemap to Google using the https:// version of the address. Google has specific recommendations about how to manage this as well here.

PART 1

  1. From the ‘Edit Content’ tab, click ‘Pages’ in the settings panel on the left
  2. Click ‘Site-wide settings’ below the list of pages
  3. Select ‘Sitemaps’
  4. Click the link to open the Google Search Console
  5. If you aren't prompted automatically to add a property, click ‘Start now’ or click the dropdown in the upper left corner to see the list of site in your account
  6. Click ‘Add Property’
  7. Enter your website's address (to avoid errors, copy from the field on the right)
  8. Under the’ Other verification methods’ section, select ‘HTML Tag’

  9. Copy the metatag text

    • It will be in this format: <meta name="google-site-verification" content="2wvoMjiQ7PEoJMOFyzOxPv4VwFRzLOYs9sC7D-lmnop" />

      Note: If it does not look like that format, the wrong verification method has been selected. You will need to choose the ‘HTML Tag’ option as a verification method.

  10. Return to your Bandzoogle ‘Sitemaps’ tab and paste the metatag text in the field marked ‘Google Verification metatag’

  11. Click ‘Save’

Note: You can use this section to verify other Google products, like YouTube, Adwords, Google Apps, Pinterest, and more. Once one Google product has been verified, you can replace the tag to verify a new service using the same steps. Even though it shows ‘Google Verification metatag’ you can paste any HTML tag supplied by Google into this field, then click ‘save’.

Re-submit your sitemap to Google

Google will automatically crawl your site to index it for search results a few weeks after you update this information. Manually re-submitting your sitemap to Google can speed up this process.

PART 2

  1. Go back to your domain settings on the Google Search Console page
  2. Click ‘Verify’
  3. From the ‘Ownership Verified’ window, click ‘Go to property’
  4. Click the menu button in the top left corner, then click ‘Sitemaps’ under the ‘Index’ header
  5. Enter sitemap.xml and click ‘Submit’
  6. Click ‘Got it’

Google Analytics Account Update

Update your Google Analytics account to set the https:// version of your address as the primary URL.

  1. Log in to your Google Analytics account
  2. Click ‘All Web Site Data’ for your domain
  3. Click the ‘Admin’ tab at the top of the screen
  4. From the middle column, click ‘Property Settings’
  5. In the ‘Default URL’ field, select https:// from the dropdown
  6. Click ‘Save’

Update External Links

  • If any other websites (including your social media accounts) are linking to your website, you’ll want to update them to use the ‘https://’ link instead of ‘http://’.
  • Update any backlinks you control as well, like URLs posted to a MusicBrainz account or Wikipedia.
  • If you exchange site links with friends or colleagues, ask them to update the links on their website so they’re pointing to the ‘https://’ version of your domain.
  • If you have manually added links on your website to other pages on your site, switch those over to ‘https://’ as well.

Note: With these and other tips, you should have success with Google ranking and SEO. Ultimately though, we here at Bandzoogle have no control over where your site ends up in the search engine results; and Google uses a complex algorithm to determine your PageRank.