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
-
Http urls on a new https website
Hi, If a site is quite new and setup as https from the beginning why would http variations exist? There are 301 redirects in place from the http to the https variation and also canonical tags pointing back to the http variation? This seems contradictory to me. I'm not sure why the http variations exist at all but they have gone to the trouble of redirecting these to the https variation indicating that it is the variation of choice but at the same time using a canonical tag that indicates the http variation is the original/main url? Thanks
Technical SEO | | MVIreland0 -
URL Understanding -
Hello everyone! Can anyone help me understanding this url? Product.asp?PID=1236 cheers
Technical SEO | | PremioOscar0 -
Expert Indexation challenge!
We have a major and strange indexation problem on our site for several languages for a while now. If I type in the search query "langsom computer" ("slow pc" in Danish) it used to display the page (www.spamfighter.com/SLOW-PCfighter/Lang_DA/) in the top 3. Now it displays this site instead as result #11 which is an entirely different product: http://www.spamfighter.com/VIRUSfighter/Lang_DA/ The same happens for some other languages. The French search: "Optimisez votre PC trop lent avec une meilleure performance" (Optimize your slow PC for better performance) displays: http://www.spamfighter.com/VIRUSfighter/Lang_FR/ which has nothing in common with the search and the page intended: http://www.spamfighter.com/SLOW-PCfighter/Lang_FR/ Anyone have ANY idea what this could be?
Technical SEO | | Crunchii0 -
Google Indexing
Hi Everybody, I am having kind of an issue when it comes to the results Google is showing on my site. I have a multilingual site, which is main language is Catalan. But of course if I am looking results in Spanish (google.es) or in English (google.com) I want Google to show the results with the proper URL, title and descriptions. My brand is "Vallnord" so if you type this in Google you will be displayed the result in Catalan (Which is not optimized at all yet) but if you search "vallnord.com/es" only then you will be displayed the result in Spanish What do I have to do in order for Google to read this the way I want? Regards, Guido.
Technical SEO | | SilbertAd0 -
IP addresses indexed?
I've met with a potential client who has a site with 1,000's of very specific part #'s which don't show in the SERP's on Google. They definitely have the issue of dynamic URL's - but the URL for the part # searches is an IP address rather than their domain name - example: 188.888.888.888/partssearch.php?pnum='1233445' I've not seen the IP address used like this for an external website - is this acceptable for SEO purposes? Thanks, Mark
Technical SEO | | DenverKelly0 -
Are URL's with trailing slash seen as two different URLs
Hello, http://www.example.com and http://ww.example.com/ Are these seen as two different URL's ? Just as with www or non www ? Or it doesn't make any difference ?
Technical SEO | | seoug_20050 -
Indexing of flash files
When Google indexes a flash file, do they use a library for such a purpose ? What set me thinking was this blog post ( although old ) which states - "we expanded our SWF indexing capabilities thanks to our continued collaboration with Adobe and a new library that is more robust and compatible with features supported by Flash Player 10.1."
Technical SEO | | seoug_20050