Google Indexing Of Pages As HTTPS vs HTTP

[vikasnwu]

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?

[GastonRiera]

Hello vikasnwu,

As what you are looking for is to remove from index the pages, follow this steps:

1. Allow the whole website to be crawable in the robots.txt
2. add the robots meta tag with "noindex,follow" parametres
3. wait several weeks, 6 to 8 weeks is a fairly good time. Or just do a followup on those pages
4. when you got the results (all your desired pages to be de-indexed) re-block with robots.txt those pages
5. 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:

1. Allow the whole website (or the parts wanted to be indexed) to be crawable in robots.txt
2. Remove the robots meta tag
3. Redirect 301 http to https
4. 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 - SERoundtable

Hope I'm helpful.
Best luck.
GR.

[vikasnwu]

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

[GastonRiera]

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.

[ThompsonPaul]

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

[ThompsonPaul]

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.)

[vikasnwu]

Paul that does make sense - i'll add the SSL certificate back, and then redirect from https to http via the htaccess file.

[ThompsonPaul]

Great! I'd really like to hear how it goes when you get the switch back in.

P.

[vikasnwu]

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.

[GastonRiera]

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.

[AgenciaSEO.eu]

Nice answer!

But you forgot to mention:

1. Updating the sitemap files with the good URLs
2. Upload them to Google Search Console
3. You can even force the indexing at Google Search Console

Thanks,

Roberto

[AgenciaSEO.eu]

Remember you can force indexing using Google Search Console

[ThompsonPaul]

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