I'm running a VPS server and for so many years, I've been using http:// for my main website. In fact, to even avoid www and non-www issue, duplicate content issues, etc. in search engines, I even have the below code in my .htaccess currently:
RewriteEngine On
Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www.example.com$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/[0-9]+\..+\.cpaneldcv$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/[A-F0-9]{32}\.txt(?:\ Comodo\ DCV)?$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.example.com/$1 [L,R=301]
Aside from the above, I use absolute path showing http:// for internal links to deter content scrapers.
Now, recently, due to an update in WHM/cPanel, and because Comodo/cPanel is now issuing free SSL certificates, and AutoSSL is enabled by default, I noticed that I can now access the https:// version of my site. That is, if I type https:// manually, the browser will state it is secure. For one, that is a good thing, since I'm planning to migrate to https:// in the future and I believe my site is ready for that I believe. But I don't plan to do the migration now, since that would be a very time consuming process.
Given my conditions above, if I just leave AutoSSL enabled by default and the free Cpanel certificate installed in my domain name, will this cause duplicate content issues for many search engines since I believe they see http and https as different sites? Because I'm not very sure if major search engines are smart enough to think that although the https:// version of my site is apparently accessible, my links are still all http:// . What is your suggestion?