Redirecting HTTP to HTTPS: Crawl Audit check 145

Short answer: people who type your domain, or follow an old link, can arrive on http://. A permanent redirect sends them to https:// before anything loads. Check 145 requests http://yourdomain and follows the redirects to see where it ends up.

What Crawl Audit checks

• Pass: the http:// address ends on an https:// page.
• Fail: it stays on http://.

It tests your homepage only. Spot-check a deeper page too, since some setups redirect the homepage and forget the rest.

What the sources say

• Google: "we recommend that you use HTTP permanent redirects if possible, such as 301 and 308." And: "301 and other permanent redirects don't cause a loss in PageRank."
• UK NCSC: "Redirect unencrypted HTTP requests to the HTTPS version."
• MDN on 308: "The request method and the body will not be modified by the client in the redirected request." With a 301, some browsers turn a form's POST into a GET.

Setting it up

• Most hosts have a "force HTTPS" setting. Turn it on.
• On your own server, redirect every http:// address to the same path on https://, not just to the homepage.
• Go straight to your final address in one hop where you can. http://www.example.com should ideally land on https://example.com directly, not via https://www.example.com first.
• Add HSTS (check 146) so returning browsers skip the http:// step altogether.

On devmarde.com

On 6 October, http://devmarde.com returned a 308 to https://devmarde.com/, so it passes. Our host forces this: Vercel's docs say HTTPS redirection "can't be disabled". One honest gap: http://www.devmarde.com takes two hops, first to https://www.devmarde.com and then to https://devmarde.com.

Sources

• Google Search Central, Site moves with URL changes (updated 20 August 2026).
• NCSC, Using TLS to protect data.
• MDN, 308 Permanent Redirect, and Vercel, Encryption, checked 6 October 2026.