Hello all hopefully someone can help with this.
I am in a "fog" concerning making in GWebmaster Tools my https:// as the preferred one. I do have all 4 sites as Google recommends BUT I don't see how to make it my preferred one it only shows www and non www for preferred NO place to check https://www am I missing something? Previously www is my preferred.
Ray

Read this guys response.
https://moz.com/community/q/in-google-s … -non-https

Thanks Eric bookmarked after reading now have to try and decipher in my brain what it means.

Read it very slowly and see how it applies to your site. This site seems to point to the most basic of what Google wants and that's what your after.

Yes SLOWLY reading reading reading all good info Eric and I keep looking at info on Moz, brain must really be in a fog or spending to much time trying to get it right. Jamie also has tried to help me in regard to adding the extra in htaccess showing all http redirect to https, all my 301's do work but still get a redirect loop for some reason????
Moz and others also talk about Canonical if I may ask this: Would I add to the index header page this:
<link rel="canonical" href="https://www.nameof site.com" /> and that shows search engines that ALL varients of the site "this is my preferred one"??? If so do I ADD to EVERY PAGE on the site in each header?
Sorry if this may be simple for many but I seem to be lost to how to get it right.
Ray

Ok still having problems, all my pages do shoow up as https using www or non www, the 301's all seem to work going to my new https redirect pages. The new sitemap is installed with no problems in google for the HTTPS varient of the site NOW Google shows that I have 2 different sites the original one that is HTTP and also now the same site using HTTPS I have tried all different combinations using the ReWrite in htaccess and every time I add different combos under the ReWrite Engine On the site comes back as error 500, I remove and leave only Engine On it works the way it should EXCEPT the HTTP version does not automatically redirect to the HTTPS version...Any help in what I am doing wrong????
Should I add this instead in the htaccess:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} 80
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.example.com/$1 [R,L] Changing example to my site url
????? Could really use some input again.
Thanks, Ray

Update: As of this afternoon I am finally able to say " All is working" http to https is now ok.
Was a big hassle all this time but now on to other small glitches to take care of.

Sounds great, Ray. Could you please post here what you ended up doing? It could be of interest to others.

Hello Inger,
Sorry for the delay finally had some last minute holiday orders to get out.
Ok from what I can say and this may be only for me BUT my Hosting Co. is "Hostway" have been with them longer than we can remember and have been pleased using them. My problem probably stems from an issue that a code such as the one shown MUST be put in the htaccess file, the one that I did finally get had a RewriteRule line at the end that was NOT right. Not going to add that as it may confuse some. For me the correct way is

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
RewriteCond %{ENV:HTTPS} !=on
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%{HTTP_HOST}/$1 [R=301,L]
</IfModule>

Now as far as I know this is for Hostway and I do NOT know if it works on other servers, after so many hours, days and weeks it is good to finally have it working
Now on to adding the Google Fetch and Indexing again for the https site.
Best regards,
Ray