: Remove HTTPS site from Google search index because users are getting a certificate error We have a busy website where we never used SSL. Recently its indexed by Google as https://www.example.com.

@Shanna517

So, Google has indexed your website pages with HTTPS, which means your are either using a shared hosting with HTTPS or else you might have used a self -signed SSL certificate on your server.

HTTPS decreases website speed is just a myth, but actually, it increases website speed compared to its HTTP version. Take the HTTP vs HTTPS speed test.

Check your Configuration, if there is any SSL installed in your shared hosting then you must either remove it or else convert all your HTTP URLs into HTTPS.

If you have used any Self-signed SSL certificate, then remove it from your server, get an SSL certificate from a Trusted SSL certificate Authority and install it on your server.

Make sure to apply 301 rediertion.

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@Megan663

I'm very surprised that Google is indexing the HTTPS pages with a broken certificate. Google usually prefers the HTTPS site if they both work, but I've never seen it prefer HTTPS when there is a broken cert.

Another solution would be to implement rel canonical link tags that point to the HTTP version. Every page on your site should have a tag pointing to its HTTP URL:

<link rel="canonical" href="http://example.com/my/page.html">


Once those tags are in place they would tell Google that the URL for the page that should be indexed is the HTTP version. One of my sites uses these tags pointing to HTTP. Google indexes the HTTP version.

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@Sherry384

If you want Google to drop the https version from SERPs, you either need to do 301 redirect to proper site or throw 404s for https requests.

Redirects are somewhat better, because your users will get what they want even if trying to access your site via https links. "Somewhat" because your goal should be to move your site to https only, and 301 http.

Best case would be to launch mirror version of your website on https, add canonical tags to http pages (pointing to their counterparts on https), then, after googlebot takes notice of canonicals, do hard 301.

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