Force SSL - but do I also need 301 redirect?

[DavetheCat]

Hello,
Hoping for advice as this is our first time using https...

We are moving our site from http to https, and are now ready to switch Joomla Global config to Force SSL: 'Entire Site’. What I’m not clear about is whether I also need to put in a 301 redirect in the htaccess file for search engines (such as Bing)?

I realise that the Force SSL will redirect any http requests to https, but everywhere I read about moving from http to https says to do 301 redirects to keep your search ranking. Google are already picking up our pages as https, but it’s the other search engines I am concerned about, as we don't want to lose rankings there either.

So do I need to do a 301 redirect as well as Force SSL? And if I do, can anyone point me to the correct code to use please? (I have found several versions of 301 code for this, so am not sure which is correct)

Thanks for any advice!

[gymvago]

Hello! I am in the same situation, and I resolved my doubts in this post:
viewtopic.php?f=712&t=946272

Force SSL in joomla panel server configuration is a 301 redirection indeed. You can to check this issue running a test here:

http://www.redirect-checker.org/index.php

You only need a 301 redirection in htaccess for www or non www urls

[ribo]

Hello,
Hoping for advice as this is our first time using https...

We are moving our site from http to https, and are now ready to switch Joomla Global config to Force SSL: 'Entire Site’. What I’m not clear about is whether I also need to put in a 301 redirect in the htaccess file for search engines (such as Bing)?

If you switch Joomla Global config to Force SSL: 'Entire Site’ it 301 redirect all the urls from http to https. No need to put also code in htaccess for that.

[DavetheCat]

Thank you!!!!!