Client has moved to secured https webpages but non secured http pages are still being indexed in Google. Is this an issue
-
We are currently working with a client that relaunched their website two months ago to have hypertext transfer protocol secure pages (https) across their entire site architecture. The problem is that their non secure (http) pages are still accessible and being indexed in Google.
Here are our concerns:
1. Are co-existing non secure and secure webpages (http and https) considered duplicate content?
2. If these pages are duplicate content should we use 301 redirects or rel canonicals?
3. If we go with rel canonicals, is it okay for a non secure page to have rel canonical to the secure version?Thanks for the advice.
-
Hi, thanks for your questions! Don has provided some great advice. In addition, you should verify both the http and https versions of your site in Google Webmaster Tools, and configure each account according to Google's guidelines for webmasters at https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6033085?hl=en&ref_topic=6033084. (You can also use GWT to tell Google your site has moved, denote the new site, remove old URLs, etc.) Hope that helps!
Christy
PS - To clarify what Don recommended on preventing duplicate content, it is best practice to 301 redirect URLs when moving from http to https (vs. using canonical tags).
-
Hi,
1. Yes, http and https are considered different urls and duplicate content is an issue.
2. You should redirect all http traffic to https inside your .htaccess file located in your root directory usually public_html
<code>RewriteEngine On RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !=on RewriteRule ^.*$ https://%{SERVER_NAME}%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L]</code>
3. You could use rel canonical but a 301 redirect is certain. It is safe to rel canonnical from http to https .
You will also want to follow up and make sure you have a robots.txt in the https version
Hope that helps!
Don
EDIT FOR A LINK: https://sites.google.com/site/onlyvalidation/page/301-redirect-https-to-http-on-apache-server
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
HTTP URL hangover after move to HTTPS
A clients site was moved to https recently. It's a small site with only 6 pages. One of the pages is to advertise an emergency service. HTTPS move worked fine. Submitted https to webmaster tools, submitted sitemap. 301 redirects. Rankings preserved. However, a few weeks later doing the site:example.com there are two pages for the emergency service. One says https the other is http. But the http one says the correct SEO title and the https one says an old SEO title. This wasn't expected. When you click the HTTP URL link it 301 redirects to the HTTPS url and the correct SEO title is displayed in the browser tab. When you click the HTTPS url link it returns a 200 and the correct SEO title is shown as expected in the browser tab. Anyone have any idea what is going on? And how to fix? Need to get rid of the HTTP URL but in the site search it contains the correct title. Plus- why is it there anyway?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AL123al0 -
Http to https what should one look out for
Hi, we are moving our site from http to https and would like to know what should one look out for. What are the things that can go wrong, and what is the best way to go about it. Regards Tai
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Taiger0 -
Should I use https schema markup after http-https migration?
Dear Moz community, Noticed that several groups of websites after HTTP -> HTTPS migration update their schema markup from, example : {
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | admiral99
"@context": "http://schema.org",
"@type": "WebSite",
"name": "Your WebSite Name",
"alternateName": "An alternative name for your WebSite",
"url": "http://www.your-site.com"
} becomes {
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "WebSite",
"name": "Your WebSite Name",
"alternateName": "An alternative name for your WebSite",
"url": "https://www.example.com"
} Interesting to know, because Moz website is on https protocol but uses http version of markup. Looking forward for answers 🙂0 -
HTTP to HTTPS Question
Hello, I have a question regarding SSL Certificates I think I know the answer to but wanted to make sure. One of our clients’ site uses http for their pages but when they started creating Registration forms they created a full duplicate site on https (so now there are two versions of all of the pages). I know due to duplicate concerns this could be an issue and needs to resolved (as well as the pros and cons of both) but if they are already set up with https does it make sense to just move everything there or in some instances would it pay to keep some pages http (using canonical tags, redirects, htccess…etc)? – Most of the information I found related to making the decision prior to having both or describing the process but I couldn’t find anything that specifically related to if both are already present. I thought that the best approach because everything’s already set up is to just move everything over to the more secure one but was curious if anybody had any insight? Thank you in advance.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Ben-R0 -
Why does Google rank a product page rather than a category page?
Hi, everybody In the Moz ranking tool for one of our client's (the client sells sport equipment) account, there is a trend where more and more of their landing pages are product pages instead of category pages. The optimal landing page for the term "sleeping bag" is of course the sleeping bag category page, but Google is sending them to a product page for a specific sleeping bag.. What could be the critical factors that makes the product page more relevant than the category page as the landing page?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Inevo0 -
Does Google still don't index Hashtag Links ? No chance to get a Search Result that leads directly to a section of a page? or to one of numeras Hashtag Pages in a single HTML page?
Does Google still don't index Hashtag Links ? No chance to get a Search Result that leads directly to a section of a page? or to one of numeras Hashtag Pages in a single HTML page? If I have 4 or 5 different hashtag link section pages , consolidated into one HTML Page, no chance to get one of the Hashtag Pages to appear as a search result? like, if under one Single Page Travel Guide I have two essential sections: #Attractions #Visa no chance to direct search queries for Visa directly to the Hashtag Link Section of #Visa? Thanks for any help
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Muhammad_Jabali0 -
Is it better to not allow Google to index my Tumblr Blog?
Currently using a subdomain for my blog via Tumblr In my seo reports I see alot of errors. Mostly from the Tumblr blog. Made change so there are unique titles and tags. Too many errors I am wondering if it is best to just not allow it to be indexed via tumblr control panel. It certainly is doing a great job with engagement and social network follows, but i'm starting to wonder if and how much it is penalizing my domain.. Appreciate your input.. By the way this theme is not flash for the content very basic single a theme...
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | wickerparadise0 -
Disallowed Pages Still Showing Up in Google Index. What do we do?
We recently disallowed a wide variety of pages for www.udemy.com which we do not want google indexing (e.g., /tags or /lectures). Basically we don't want to spread our link juice around to all these pages that are never going to rank. We want to keep it focused on our core pages which are for our courses. We've added them as disallows in robots.txt, but after 2-3 weeks google is still showing them in it's index. When we lookup "site: udemy.com", for example, Google currently shows ~650,000 pages indexed... when really it should only be showing ~5,000 pages indexed. As another example, if you search for "site:udemy.com/tag", google shows 129,000 results. We've definitely added "/tag" into our robots.txt properly, so this should not be happening... Google showed be showing 0 results. Any ideas re: how we get Google to pay attention and re-index our site properly?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | udemy0