HTTP URLs Still in Index
-
One of the sites I manage was migrated to secure 2 months ago. XML sitemaps have been updated, canonical tags all have https:, and a redirect rule was applied. Despite all this, I'm still seeing non-secure URLs in Google's index. The weird thing is, when I click those links, they go to the secure version.
Has anyone else seen weird things with Google not properly indexing secure versions of URLs?
-
Just make certain your http > https redirect is a 301, not a 302 (A lot of the examples on the web for this redirects are actually wrong in this regard). A 302 will make it difficult to get the old URLs to drop out of the index.
-
Thanks for your input Casey. I'm dealing with about 4,000 URLs, so I think I'll go with the patience method!
-
Hey Logan, I wouldn't say this is a "strange behavior." I've seen it take several months for all non-http URLs to drop out of the index when making a SSL switch.
That being said, you "could" go ahead and do a fetch request on the individual URLs in the old HTTP verified Google Search Console account and get Google to follow again the URLS to their HTTPS counterparts. That certainly won't hurt.
I had a similar issue with a client site who moved to HTTPS but forgot to noindex the dev site and all of that was indexed. They had 700+ URLs in their account in April and they still have 4 of those URLs in search as of today. It just takes awhile for all that stuff to dropout of the index.
Personally, I'd just be patient. You having the redirects in place is what is important. Google will sort it out...eventually.
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
-
No Index PDFs
Our products have about 4 PDFs a piece, which really inflates our indexed pages. I was wondering if I could add REL=No Index to the PDF's URL? All of the files are on a file server, so they are embedded with links on our product pages. I know I could add a No Follow attribute, but I was wondering if any one knew if the No Index would work the same or if that is even possible. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | MonicaOConnor0 -
HTTP & HTTPS
what is best recommended when some of the pages on site goes from HTTP to HTTPS: 301 redirection or 302 redirection?
Technical SEO | | JonsonSwartz
and why? thank you I was asked to elaborate so: on my website I have open account pages. users are asked to fill the details. those page are secured and are HTTPS. the problem is that the whole website turned to HTTPS so they redirected most of the pages from HTTPS to HTTP.
the secured pages are redirected from HTTP to HTTPS. I wanted to check if it's correct and what is the best redirection way (301 or 302)0 -
How to fix these unwanted URLs?
Right now i have wordpress, one page website, but google also show wp-content. KIndly check below in google. site:http://baltimoreelite.com/ How I can fix this issue?
Technical SEO | | marknorman0 -
If Google's index contains multiple URLs for my homepage, does that mean the canonical tag is not working?
I have a site which is using canonical tags on all pages, however not all duplicate versions of the homepage are 301'd due to a limitation in the hosting platform. So some site visitors get www.example.com/default.aspx while others just get www.example.com. I can see the correct canonical tag on the source code of both versions of this homepage, but when I search Google for the specific URL "www.example.com/default.aspx" I see that they've indexed that specific URL as well as the "clean" one. Is this a concern... shouldn't Google only show me the clean URL?
Technical SEO | | JMagary0 -
Page URL Change
We're planning on rolling out a redesign of an existing page, and at the same time, we're looking to possibly changing the URL of the page. Currently, the URL is www.blah.com/phraseword1-phraseword2-phraseword3-phraseword4 and we're ranking top 3 in Google SERP for that 4-word phrase. The keyword phrase is something we have in our Page Title, Site Copy and the URL. Now, we are planning on simplifying the URL to below.. www.blah.com/phraseword1-phraseword2 The plan is to 301 redirect the original URL to this new URL and actually work the exact phrase into the copy a few more times. My understanding is that URL doesn't get as much weight as it does in the past, but it's still important. So my question is... How important is the URL in this case where we will continue to have it in our page title and also we'll be working more copy on to the page with the appropriate keyword? Will 301 redirect from the old URL address the issue of passing SEO value for that keyword phrase? Thanks,
Technical SEO | | JoeLin
Joe0 -
Round 3 & still no indexing for varicose veins :-(
Greetings from 11 degrees C partly suuny Wetherby 🙂 Every so oftem you hit an SEO mission that just consistently hits a brick wall. For the third time i'm investigating why this page:
Technical SEO | | Nightwing
http://www.collegeofphlebology.com/varicose-veins/what-are-they/ fails to even reach the bottom of page 3. Ive gone back to basic and ran an SEO audit of sorts in an attempt to see if I'd missed anything. Here is the audit: http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc53/zymurgy_bucket/audit-for-moz.jpg So my question is please: From a technical SEO perspective is there anything wrong with this page http://www.collegeofphlebology.com/varicose-veins/what-are-they/ to explain why it does not rank for target term "Varicose Veins" Thanks in advance,
David0 -
Formatting dynamic urls?
We have a long-time previously well-established website that was hit by panda. On one section of the site, we have dynamic urls that include %20 in them (e.g. North%20America). It's recently come to our attention that google has both a version of the url with a plus sign (+) and the version with the %20 (space) (e.g. North+America). Upon researching this, it seems that a hyphen (-) is preferable to either of the above. We obviously need to remove the %20's from the urls as they can cause issues. So, should we stick with the + sign since it's already indexed and ranking or do a 301 rewrite and change them all to hyphens instead of the plus sign? This is the one section of the site that has maintained rankings through the panda debacle, so we need to take that into consideration as we don’t want to lose the rankings that we have. Along the same lines, we have two other sections of the site that provide search results as well, though these are all formatted to use a plus sign. Is it advisable to do a 301 rewrite to change the plus signs to hyphens on these as well or just leave them alone? This particular section has lost rankings over the last year with panda updates.
Technical SEO | | Odjobob0 -
Shorter URLs
Hi Is there a real value in having the keywords in the URL structure? we could use the URL: Mybrand.com/software/tablets/ipad/supertrader.html Or instead have the CMS create the shorter version mybrand.com/supertrader.html and just optimize this page for the keyword 'supertrader ipad software'
Technical SEO | | FXDD1
