Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Google Indexing Of Pages As HTTPS vs HTTP
-
We recently updated our site to be mobile optimized. As part of the update, we had also planned on adding SSL security to the site. However, we use an iframe on a lot of our site pages from a third party vendor for real estate listings and that iframe was not SSL friendly and the vendor does not have that solution yet. So, those iframes weren't displaying the content.
As a result, we had to shift gears and go back to just being http and not the new https that we were hoping for.
However, google seems to have indexed a lot of our pages as https and gives a security error to any visitors. The new site was launched about a week ago and there was code in the htaccess file that was pushing to www and https. I have fixed the htaccess file to no longer have https.
My questions is will google "reindex" the site once it recognizes the new htaccess commands in the next couple weeks?
-
That's not going to solve your problem, vikasnwu. Your immediate issue is that you have URLs in the index that are HTTPS and will cause searchers who click on them not to reach your site due to the security error warnings. The only way to fix that quickly is to get the SSL certificate and redirect to HTTP in place.
You've sent the search engines a number of very conflicting signals. Waiting while they try to work out what URLs they're supposed to use and then waiting while they reindex them is likely to cause significant traffic issues and ongoing ranking harm before the SEs figure it out for themselves. The whole point of what I recommended is it doesn't depend on the SEs figuring anything out - you will have provided directives that force them to do what you need.
Paul
-
Remember you can force indexing using Google Search Console
-
Nice answer!
But you forgot to mention:
- Updating the sitemap files with the good URLs
- Upload them to Google Search Console
- You can even force the indexing at Google Search Console
Thanks,
Roberto
-
Paul,
I just provided the solution to de-index the https version. I understood that what's wanted, as they need their client to fix their end.And of course that there is no way to noindex by protocol. I do agree what you are saying.
Thanks a lot for explaining further and prividing other ways to help solvinf the issue, im inspired by used like you to help others and make a great community.
GR.
-
i'm first going to see what happens if I just upload a sitemap with http URLs since there wasn't a sitemap in webmaster tools from before. Will give you the update then.
-
Great! I'd really like to hear how it goes when you get the switch back in.
P.
-
Paul that does make sense - i'll add the SSL certificate back, and then redirect from https to http via the htaccess file.
-
You can't noindex a URL by protocol, Gaston - adding no-index would eliminate the page from being returned as a search result regardless of whether HTTP or HTTPS, essentially making those important pages invisible and wasting whatever link equity they may have. (You also can't block in robots.txt by protocol either, in my experience.)
-
There's a very simple solution to this issue - and no, you absolutely do NOT want to artificially force removal of those HTTPS pages from the index.
You need to make sure the SSL certificate is still in place, then re-add the 301-redirect in the site's htaccess file, but this time redirecting all HTTPS URLs back their HTTP equivalents.
You don't want to forcibly "remove" those URLs from the SERPs, because they are what Google now understands to be the correct pages. If you remove them, you'll have to wait however long it takes for Google and other search engines to completely re-understand the conflicting signals you've sent them about your site. And traffic will inevitably suffer in that process. Instead, you need to provide standard directives that the search engines don't have to interpret and can't ignore. Once the search engines have seen the new redirects for long enough, they'll start reverting the SERP listings back to the HTTP URLs naturally.
The key here is the SSL cert must stay in place. As it stands now, a visitor clicking a page in the search engine is trying to make an HTTPS connection to your site. If there is no certificate in place, they will get the harmful security warning. BUT! You can't just put in a 301-redirect in that case. The reason for this is that the initial connection from the SERP is coming in over the "secure channel". That connection must be negotiated securely first, before the redirect can even be read. If that first connection isn't secure, the browser will return the security warning without ever trying to read the redirect.
Having the SSL cert in place even though you're not running all pages under HTTPS means that first connection can still be made securely, then the redirect can be read back to the HTTP URL, and the visitor will get to the page they expect in a seamless manner. And search engines will be able to understand and apply authority without misunderstandings/confusion.
Hope that all makes sense?
Paul
-
Noup, Robots.txt works on a website level. This means that there has to be a file for the http and another for the https website.
And, there is no need for waiting until the whole site is indexed.Just to clarify, robots.txt itself does not remove pages already indexed. It just blocks bots from crawling a website and/or specific pages with in it.
-
GR - thanks for the response.
Given our site is just 65 pages, would it make sense to just put all of the site's "https" URLs in the robots.txt file as "noindex" now rather than waiting for all the pages to get indexed as "https" and then remove them?
And then upload a sitemap to webmaster tools with the URLS as "http://"?
VW
-
Hello vikasnwu,
As what you are looking for is to remove from index the pages, follow this steps:
- Allow the whole website to be crawable in the robots.txt
- add the robots meta tag with "noindex,follow" parametres
- wait several weeks, 6 to 8 weeks is a fairly good time. Or just do a followup on those pages
- when you got the results (all your desired pages to be de-indexed) re-block with robots.txt those pages
- DO NOT erase the meta robots tag.
Remember that http://site.com andhttps://site.com are different websites to google.
When your client's website is fixed with https, follow these steps:- Allow the whole website (or the parts wanted to be indexed) to be crawable in robots.txt
- Remove the robots meta tag
- Redirect 301 http to https
- Sit and wait.
Information about the redirection to HTTPS and a cool checklist:
The Big List of SEO Tips and Tricks for Using HTTPS on Your Website - Moz Blog
The HTTP to HTTPs Migration Checklist in Google Docs to Share, Copy & Download - AleydaSolis
Google SEO HTTPS Migration Checklist - SERoundtableHope I'm helpful.
Best luck.
GR.
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
-
URL structure - Page Path vs No Page Path
We are currently re building our URL structure for eccomerce websites. We have seen a lot of site removing the page path on product pages e.g. https://www.theiconic.co.nz/liberty-beach-blossom-shirt-680193.html versus what would normally be https://www.theiconic.co.nz/womens-clothing-tops/liberty-beach-blossom-shirt-680193.html Should we be removing the site page path for a product page to keep the url shorter or should we keep it? I can see that we would loose the hierarchy juice to a product page but not sure what is the right thing to do.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Ashcastle0 -
No Index thousands of thin content pages?
Hello all! I'm working on a site that features a service marketed to community leaders that allows the citizens of that community log 311 type issues such as potholes, broken streetlights, etc. The "marketing" front of the site is 10-12 pages of content to be optimized for the community leader searchers however, as you can imagine there are thousands and thousands of pages of one or two line complaints such as, "There is a pothole on Main St. and 3rd." These complaint pages are not about the service, and I'm thinking not helpful to my end goal of gaining awareness of the service through search for the community leaders. Community leaders are searching for "311 request service", not "potholes on main street". Should all of these "complaint" pages be NOINDEX'd? What if there are a number of quality links pointing to the complaint pages? Do I have to worry about losing Domain Authority if I do NOINDEX them? Thanks for any input. Ken
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | KenSchaefer0 -
My blog is indexing only the archive and category pages
Hi there MOZ community. I am new to the QandA and have a question. I have a blog Its been live for months - but I can not get the posts to rank in the serps. Oddly only the categories rank. The posts are crawled it seems - but seen as less important for a reason I don't understand. Can anyone here help with this? See here for what i mean. I have had several wp sites rank well in the serps - and the posts do much better. Than the categories or archives - super odd. Thanks to all for help!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | walletapp0 -
Page position dropped on Google
Hey Guys, My web designer has recommended this forum to use, the reason being: my google position has been dropped from page 1 to page 10 in the last week. The site is weloveschoolsigns.co.uk, but our main business site is textstyles.co.uk the school signs are a product of text styles. I have been told off my SEO company, that because I have changed the school logo to the text styles logo, Google have penalised me for it, and dropped us from page 1 for numerous keywords, to page 10 or more. They have also said that duplicate content within the school site http://www.weloveschoolsigns.co.uk/school-signs-made-easy/ has also a contributed to the drop in positions. (this content is not on the textstyles site) Lastly they said, that having the same telephone number is a definate no no. They said that I have been penalised, because google see the above as trying to monopolise on the market. I don’t know if all this is true, as the SEO is way above my head, but they have quoted me £1250 to repair all the errors, when the site only cost £750. They have also mentioned that because of the above changes, the main text styles site will also be punished. Any thoughts on this matter would be much appreciated as I don't know whether to pay them to crack on, or accept the new positions. Either way I'm very confused. Thanks Thomas
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TextStylesUK0 -
Effects of having both http and https on my website
You are able to view our website as either http and https on all pages. For example: You can type "http://mywebsite.com/index.html" and the site will remain as http: as you navigate the site. You can also type "https://mywebsite.com/index.html" and the site will remain as https: as you navigate the site. My question is....if you can view the entire site using either http or https, is this being seen as duplicate content/pages? Does the same hold true with "www.mywebsite.com" and "mywebsite.com"? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | rexjoec1 -
Site Indexed by Google but not Bing or Yahoo
Hi, I have a site that is indexed (and ranking very well) in Google, but when I do a "site:www.domain.com" search in Bing and Yahoo it is not showing up. The team that purchased the domain a while back has no idea if it was indexed by Bing or Yahoo at the time of purchase. Just wondering if there is anything that might be preventing it from being indexed? Also, Im going to submit an index request, are there any other things I can do to get it picked up?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | dbfrench0 -
Best practice for removing indexed internal search pages from Google?
Hi Mozzers I know that it’s best practice to block Google from indexing internal search pages, but what’s best practice when “the damage is done”? I have a project where a substantial part of our visitors and income lands on an internal search page, because Google has indexed them (about 3 %). I would like to block Google from indexing the search pages via the meta noindex,follow tag because: Google Guidelines: “Use robots.txt to prevent crawling of search results pages or other auto-generated pages that don't add much value for users coming from search engines.” http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35769 Bad user experience The search pages are (probably) stealing rankings from our real landing pages Webmaster Notification: “Googlebot found an extremely high number of URLs on your site” with links to our internal search results I want to use the meta tag to keep the link juice flowing. Do you recommend using the robots.txt instead? If yes, why? Should we just go dark on the internal search pages, or how shall we proceed with blocking them? I’m looking forward to your answer! Edit: Google have currently indexed several million of our internal search pages.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | HrThomsen0 -
NOINDEX listing pages: Page 2, Page 3... etc?
Would it be beneficial to NOINDEX category listing pages except for the first page. For example on this site: http://flyawaysimulation.com/downloads/101/fsx-missions/ Has lots of pages such as Page 2, Page 3, Page 4... etc: http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aflyawaysimulation.com+fsx+missions Would there be any SEO benefit of NOINDEX on these pages? Of course, FOLLOW is default, so links would still be followed and juice applied. Your thoughts and suggestions are much appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Peter2640