Invisible HTTP Page Is Ruining Your Google Site Name and Favicon
The Invisible Culprit: Hidden HTTP Pages
For the modern web user, the transition from HTTP to HTTPS has become virtually invisible—a seamless background process managed effortlessly by robust browsers like Chrome. When a user types in an old domain or clicks a link that defaults to the insecure protocol, the browser intercepts the request and immediately forces a secure redirection. This mechanism is a foundational pillar of modern web security, designed to shield users from potential snooping and reassure them that their connection is encrypted.
However, this user-centric convenience creates a dangerous blind spot for SEO professionals and site administrators. As highlighted by the recent observations shared by @glenngabe on February 12, 2026, at 5:22 PM UTC, what the user doesn't see can significantly influence how Google does see and present a website in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). The discrepancy lies in the indexing process: while Chrome handles the upgrade instantly for visitors, Googlebot, the search engine crawler, interacts with the site resources far more fundamentally, sometimes indexing—or basing critical presentation decisions on—the underlying, redirected HTTP version.
How Hidden HTTP Influences Site Name and Favicon
The integrity of a website’s presentation in Google Search—specifically the Site Name and the accompanying Favicon—is crucial for brand recognition and click-through rates. When these elements appear incorrectly, site owners are often left baffled, chasing down complex schema markup or core web vital issues. The underlying cause, as suggested by discussions involving Google’s John Mueller, can be far more archaic and structural.
John Mueller has previously confirmed that issues with site name selection in Google Search are notoriously difficult to diagnose because the system relies on multiple signals, and sometimes, older or less-frequently accessed versions of a site hold undue sway. If the primary landing page, which Googlebot first encounters or indexes deeply, is the HTTP version before the automatic redirect kicks in, Google may mistakenly pull its title and metadata from that insecure endpoint.
This hidden HTTP homepage acts as a ghost version of the site, potentially housing outdated HTML, an older logo (the favicon), or a less optimized title tag. When Googlebot crawls and indexes resources, if it finds an accessible, canonical-seeming HTTP page, it may solidify its understanding of the site's identity based on that page, even if 99% of human traffic immediately lands on HTTPS. The favicon, often referenced early in the <head> section, is a prime candidate for this outdated snapshot, leading to a confusing or non-existent icon appearing next to the URL in search results.
Chrome's Misleading Security Feature
The critical mechanism at play here is Chrome's built-in automatic HTTP-to-HTTPS upgrading. This feature actively rewrites insecure requests behind the scenes before they even resolve fully. For the average user browsing the web today, this feature works flawlessly, ensuring that security warnings are minimized and the user experience remains pristine. You are protected, and you never see the potential danger or the problematic legacy code residing on the unsecure port.
Googlebot's Unfiltered View
Googlebot does not operate with the same protective layer as Chrome. While Google strives to mimic modern user agents, the crawler fundamentally needs to explore the entire site structure, including potentially insecure endpoints, to establish canonical status and understand site architecture. It assesses links, response headers, and page content directly as they are served on the requested protocol.
If a server is configured only to redirect HTTP traffic to HTTPS (rather than immediately rejecting it or ensuring HTTPS is the only entry point), Googlebot will follow that redirect path but may have already processed the initial HTTP response long enough to cache identifying elements like the page title or favicon location associated with that insecure version. This cached, invisible version is then used to construct the SERP listing, causing headaches for those who have meticulously updated everything on their HTTPS deployment.
Resolution and Best Practices for Site Owners
The takeaway for diligent site owners must be a proactive, aggressive audit for any functional HTTP endpoint. Relying on the browser to handle security for indexing systems is a critical oversight. You must assume that if an HTTP URL returns a 200 OK status code to any crawler, Google may treat it as a valid, albeit secondary, entry point to your content.
The most robust solution is not a client-side JavaScript redirect or even a simple .htaccess rule that sends a 302 (temporary) redirect. Site owners must enforce an immediate, permanent 301 redirect at the server level for all HTTP requests, sending them directly to the HTTPS equivalent. Furthermore, developers should ensure that the very first response for any example.com request, regardless of protocol requested, is the secure one, effectively eliminating any window where Googlebot might read content from the unsecure source. This guarantees that the official, indexed identity of the site is based solely on the desired, secure configuration.
This report is based on the digital updates shared on X. We've synthesized the core insights to keep you ahead of the marketing curve.