HTTPS

The secure version of a web address, which Google strongly recommends for every site and prefers to index when a page has both an HTTP and an HTTPS address.

HTTPS is the secure way of serving a web page. Google “strongly recommends using HTTPS for your site to protect your users’ security and privacy”, and if a page has both an HTTP and an HTTPS address, Google “prefers to index the HTTPS version” (Google Search Console Help).

It is also one of the questions in Google’s page experience self-check: “Are your pages served in a secure fashion?” (Google Search Central).

How to check your site

Search Console’s HTTPS report counts how many of your indexed URLs are HTTP and how many are HTTPS. Ideally it shows no HTTP URLs. The report is available only for Domain properties and HTTPS URL-prefix properties, and it shows a sample, not a full list.

Common problems it reports

• An HTTP page carries a canonical tag pointing to itself, when the HTTPS version should be the canonical.
• The HTTPS address has an invalid SSL certificate, which typically affects the whole site.
• Your sitemap points to HTTP addresses instead of HTTPS ones.
• The HTTPS address redirects back to HTTP, or robots.txt blocks it.

Google notes that some errors are transient and fix themselves once it crawls the HTTPS version. If a site has a lot of HTTPS issues, though, Google may stop crawling its HTTPS pages.

Related terms

• Page experience
• Canonical URL
• Google Search Console

Tools for it

• Technical SEO, audits and speed

Sources

• https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/11396518 (Oct 14, 2026)
• https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/page-experience (Oct 14, 2026)

Updated Oct 14, 2026.