Credits: blog.combell.com
Lately, there was a new small-scale analysis done and it showed that over 80 percent of the HTTPS URLs do not show up in search results in Google. This statement was revealed by Gary Illyes, who is a Google webmaster trends analyst. Many of these HTTPS URLS are actually eligible for indexing and yet they are displayed as HTTP URLS due webmaster configuration.
- Illyes added that it is not possible for the URL to become canonical simply because the site owners do not give information about them. Additionally, it was reported that site users use HTTP versions in the sitemap files, in the rel-alternate-hreflang and rel-canonical elements, even if HTTPs variant works really fine. He also recommended using HTTPS if the site supports them since Google has given ranking to HTTPs since August.
- Illyes also shared a simple analysis that Google used on HTTPS URLs. The analysis proved that 80 percent of these HTTPS URLs were indeed eligible for Google search result listings. He explained further though, that these were not included because of the canonicalization of the HTTP version by the webmaster. It was not reported though if that was accidental or done on purpose.
It is Google’s intention to show the HTTPS variant, although if one want the Http version to be communicated Google instead, it is also possible. The configuration is the main reason why 80 percent of the eligible HTTPS URLs are not shown in Google search result listings. Again it was emphasized that it was not Google’s fault that HTTP version still shows.
To further explain this issue it is best to understand that the recent analysis performed showing that over 80 percent of HTTPS URLs being eligible for indexing (meaning these have no noindex and no crawl issues, thus all is good) cannot be canonicalized because the site owners do not tell Google about them. Again site owners are just using the HTTP version even if the HTTPS URLs version is working just fine.
This could only mean that the choice is actually on the website owners. All they need to do is to let Google know more about their HTTPS URLs and then everything will be alright. When this happens, the 80 percent of HTTPS URLs not showing on Google search result listings before are going to be canonicalized so that they will show on the search engine’s result.
Source: Search Engine Land
