Over the last year we’ve seen many businesses change over from HTTP to HTTPs. The ÒsÓ is part of SSL which stands for Secure Sockets Layer. It provides a secure connection between internet browsers and websites, allowing you to transmit private data online. Sites secured with SSL display a padlock in the browser’s URL and possibly a green address bar if secured by an EV Certificate.

However, that change means you need to update your URLs in AdWords, Bing and on any campaign you’re running online. If you’re running a small AdWords account, you could login to AdWords and update every URL one by one. However, if you’re managing multiple campaigns or want to make the process faster, you could also use the AdWords Editor on your Mac or PC to help you make changes faster in your account.

We use auto-tagging here at Unbounce, so we only need to update URLs in our ads and Sitelinks. However, you could apply the below method if you need to update your keyword URLs too.

Step 1

When you download the AdWords Editor and sign into your AdWords account, you’ll be presented with the following screen. Navigation is on the left hand side and your view screen is split between campaign settings on the lower half and campaign data in the upper half. Click on ÒAds & ExtensionÓ in the lower half of the navigation screen. You should see ads you’ve in your account in the view screen area (both active and paused ads).

Step 2

On the campaign settings part of your screen, you’ll see 4 tabs: edit selected text ads, URL options, Labels and Comments. You’ll want to click on ÒURL OptionsÓ because when you updated to Final URL on or before 1st July, there is where you URLs moved too. If you click on any of your ads, you’ll see the URL field change to show you what URL you’re running on that ad.

Step 3

If you only have one URL running, you could click Òcommand + AÓ on your Mac and select all you ads (control + A if you’re on a PC). Otherwise, you can use the search field at the top of your adWords Editor. Copy & paste in the URL you want to update and hit enter to find all the ads that have that URL. Once the search is done running, which might take a few minutes if you’ve a large account. You can select all the ads and then just copy & paste in the new URL into the ÒFinal URLÓ field in the settings area of your account. This will work for keywords and Sitelinks URLs too.

Step 4

Repeat steps 2 and 3 until all your ads have been changed over from HTTP to HTTPS. If you’ve unsure if you missed any ads or keywords. You can look for ads that don’t have a triangle beside them (see screenshot). The triangle is how the AdWords Editors lets you know if an ad, keyword or sitelink has been edited since you last uploaded changes into your AdWords account. You can even click on the header tab and sort by the column. You can do that for any column in the AdWords Editor, if you want to sort a list.

Now that you know how to update your scripts, make sure you’re following the checklist of considerations before you make the swap. You can find them here.