HTTPS: Blogger Images Given Relative Paths

I guess blogger heard us finally! =) We reported back some 5 major disadvantages of switching to HTTPS for blogspot blogs and among these disadvantages was the serious concern of mixed content issue majorly caused by picasa images inserted inside the blog posts. These images was given absolute paths and we discussed that unless images are given relative paths, switching to https at this stage could be a nightmare. Fortunately just recently all blogspot blogs which uses the encrypted and secure HTTPS connection will get all its media content auto replaced with Relative URLs. All images are auto served with relative paths

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Topics List

How are Images Stored in Relative URLS?

All images that you upload in a blogger blog are stored inside Picasa web album. Previously even if you had enabled HTTPS, your visitors would continue seeing the following http error in their address bar. It was caused mainly due to image links stored in http:// instead of https://

Connection is Not Secure

The connection to this website is not fully secure because it contains unencrypted elements (such as images) or the encryption is not strong enough.

But now this issue has been fixed thanks to relative paths which automatically replaces your Image HTTP URLS with HTTPS URLS. 

In Relative URLS case you don't need to change the URLs from http to https because the image src will pick the current Domain URL structure of your site no matter how many times you change it.

BEFORE:

Before switching to https, blogger images are stored in absolute paths which looks like the one below:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-uH6EWDyC8uc/URKlnspDBRI/AAAAAAAAJGw/z_6DsQvaH9g/image%25255B7%25255D.png?imgmax=800

 

AFTER:

After switching your .blogspot.com domain to HTTPS, the images will get a relative path or naked paths without the hyper text protocol as shown below:

//3.bp.blogspot.com/-uH6EWDyC8uc/URKlnspDBRI/AAAAAAAAJGw/z_6DsQvaH9g/image%25255B7%25255D.png?imgmax=800

Thanks to this relative URLS your connection will remain secure and your visitors wont see "connection Is Not Secure" Instead they will now see a "Secure connection" alert box in the address bar as shown below:

Secure Connection

Firefox has blocked parts of this page that are not secure

Areas which are blocked are your widget scripts which are using the HTTP connection. You will need to manually replace it with HTTPS or upload your scripts at a secure https hosting.

Your views?

Just two months ago we raised this SEO blunder that was causing serious trouble but I am really glad now that blogger has fixed this mixed content issue and has handled it effectively at server side. This was exactly was we recommended in our post. Do read that post to get a clear idea of what we mean. Although I will still request that blogger team may now also fix the http to https redirection problem which is not yet sorted out. Only then switching to HTTPS could effect a blog's search ranking positively.

How do you think this latest development will help publishers better fix the mixed content errors? What else would you request from blogger to fix? Do share your views in the comment box below.

Finally for bloggers with over 1K-10K posts, relative paths are surely no less than a heaven! =)