Hidden HTTP Page Can Cause Site Name Problems In Google

Google’s John Mueller shared a case where a leftover HTTP homepage was causing unexpected site-name and favicon problems in search results.

The issue, which Mueller described on Bluesky, is easy to miss because Chrome can automatically upgrade HTTP requests to HTTPS, making the HTTP version easy to overlook.

What Happened

Mueller described the case as “a weird one.” The site used HTTPS, but a server-default HTTP homepage was still accessible at the HTTP version of the domain.

Mueller wrote:

“A hidden homepage causing site-name & favicon problems in Search. This was a weird one. The site used HTTPS, however there was a server-default HTTP homepage remaining.”

The tricky part is that Chrome can upgrade HTTP navigations to HTTPS, which makes the HTTP version easy to miss in normal browsing. Googlebot doesn’t follow Chrome’s upgrade behavior.

Mueller explained:

“Chrome automatically upgrades HTTP to HTTPS so you don’t see the HTTP page. However, Googlebot sees and uses it to influence the sitename & favicon selection.”

Google’s site name system pulls the name and favicon from the homepage to determine what to display in search results. The system reads structured data from the website, title tags, heading elements, og:site_name, and other signals on the homepage. If Googlebot is reading a server-default HTTP page instead of the actual HTTPS homepage, it’s working with the wrong signals.

How To Check For This

Mueller suggested two ways to see what Googlebot sees.

First, he joked that you could use AI. Then he corrected himself.

Mueller wrote:

“No wait, curl on the command line. Or a tool like the structured data test in Search Console.”

Running curl from the command line would show the raw HTTP response without Chrome’s auto-upgrade. If the response returns a server-default page instead of your actual homepage, that’s the problem.

If you want to see what Google retrieved and rendered, use the URL Inspection tool in Search Console and run a Live Test. Google’s site name documentation also notes that site names aren’t supported in the Rich Results Test.

Why This Matters

The display of site names and favicons in search results is something we’ve been documenting since Google first replaced title tags with site names in 2022. Since then, the system has gone through multiple growing pains. Google expanded site name support to subdomains in 2023, then spent nearly a year fixing a bug where site names on internal pages didn’t match the homepage.

This case introduces a new complication. The problem wasn’t in the structured data or the HTTPS homepage itself. It was a ghost page in the HTTP version, which you’d have no reason to check because your browser never showed it.

Google’s site name documentation explicitly mentions duplicate homepages, including HTTP and HTTPS versions, and recommends using the same structured data for both. Mueller’s case shows what can go wrong when an HTTP version contains content different from the HTTPS homepage you intended to serve.

The takeaway for troubleshooting site-name or favicon problems in search results is to check the HTTP version of your homepage directly. Don’t rely on what Chrome shows you.

Looking Ahead

Google’s site name documentation specifies that WebSite structured data must be on “the homepage of the site,” defined as the domain-level root URI. For sites running HTTPS, that means the HTTPS homepage is the intended source.

If your site name or favicon looks wrong in search results and your HTTPS homepage has the correct structured data, check whether an HTTP version of the homepage still exists. Use curl or the URL Inspection tool’s Live Test to view it directly. If a server-default page is sitting there, removing it or redirecting HTTP to HTTPS at the server level should resolve the issue.