Http and https issue in Google SERP

[JonsonSwartz]

Hi,

I've noticed that Google indexing some of my pages as regular http, like this:

http://www.example.com/accounts/‎

and some pages are being indexed as https, like this:

https://www.example.com/platforms/‎

When I've performed site audit check in various SEO tools I got something around +450 pages duplicated and showing me pairs of the same URL pages, one time with http and one time with https.

In our site there is the possibility for people to register and and open an account, later on to login to our website with their login details.

In our company I'm not the one that is responsible for the site's maintenance and I would like to know if this is an issue, and if this is an issue - to know what causing it and how to fix it so I'll be able to forward the solution to the person in charge.

Additionally I would like to know in general, what is the real purpose of https vs. http and to know what is the preferred method that our website should use. Currently when URLs are typed manually to the address bar, all the URLs are loading fine - with or without https written at the start of each URL.

I'm not allowed to expose our site's name, this is why I wrote example.com instead, I hope you can understand that.

Thank you so much for your help and I'm looking forward reading your answers.

[Matt-Williamson]

Hi Joni - have a look at this previous thread it will help you with this issue and how to solve the duplicate content that is being served.

http://moz.com/community/q/duplicate-content-and-http-and-https

[Everett]

Hello Joni,

One of the solutions from the thread Matt linked to earlier is very interesting. I've never tried it but will definitely give it a shot soon. Read about it here. In short, you would add a line to the htaccess file that would instruct user agents trying to access a secure page on the site that they are disallowed from visiting any page.

Since I've never tried that solutions, and so far haven't talked to anyone who has, my recommendation is going to be the simplest one I know of:

Make sure your rel canonical tag is using the http version of the URL. This should not change when viewing the https version - it should have an http rel canonical tag. That should solve the problem without having to redirect users to a non-secure page, and without having to edit your htaccess file.