Raquel is working on a technical SEO audit for a new client who recently decided to move their website from HTTP to HTTPS. When starting her audit, Raquel notices that some HTTP pages were never redirected to the HTTPS pages, which is now causing issues for the site in search. However, this client is very resistant to the idea of implementing more redirects, since they’ve heard that this can lead to a drop in their search performance. How should Raquel approach this situation with her client?
She should stop the technical SEO audit completely and tell her client that she cannot continue until they have resolved the issues with redirecting the HTTP pages to HTTPS.
She should explain to her client how redirects work (focusing on how 301 redirects pass “link juice” to new pages), explain how having both HTTP and HTTPS pages creates duplicate content, and how this can negatively affect the site’s performance.
She should explain that while improperly implemented redirects can result in a drop in search performance, they are a necessary evil and redirecting the HTTP pages to HTTPS must happen immediately.