The vast majority of large successful businesses have long since switched from HTTP to HTTPS. In today's marketplace, most business owners and SEO experts understand the benefits of implementing HTTPS.
A few important questions remain, however: how important exactly is it to make the switch, and what are the implications for SEO rankings and website security?
SEO and HTTPS
While some SEO professionals are all-knowing gurus, not all professionals are comfortable with the nitty-gritty technical details. For the technical experts, the benefits of implementing HTTPS is likely something with which they are already familiar, but for others, it can be a bit intimidating.
HTTPS:// is not exactly simple. The good news, however, is that you don't need to understand the full depth of what's going on in order to increase the security of your website.
The move to HTTPS
HTTPS, or HyperText Transfer Protocol Secure, is a protocol that increases the level of security for communication over a computer network. In 2014, Google made the announcement that using HTTPS would be a factor in SEO rankings.
While the boost to SEO rankings is actually quite small, impacting around 1% of searches globally, this is likely to increase in the future. As a result, a large number of SEO professionals made the switch and implemented HTTPS.
HTTPS and Securing Your Website
On top of the small boost to SEO rankings, using HTTPS increases the security of your website in a variety of ways. The most important benefit comes when users have to submit data such as personal information, particularly credit card details.
- Encryption: if data is intercepted, it cannot be accessed without an encryption key
- Data integrity: transmitted data cannot be corrupted
- Authentication: an SSL certificate ensures that the data is being sent to you and not a scammer (1)
To Switch Or Not To Switch
There are obvious benefits to implementing HTTPS:
- A higher level of website security (particularly for user's personal information)
- A minor boost to SEO rankings (that may grow in the coming years)
- A cool lock symbol next to your web address :)
Despite these benefits, not every website desperately needs to make the switch.
Questions To Ask Before Making the Switch
To determine how important HTTPS is for your website, ask yourself two simple questions:
- How much traffic does your website get?
- What kind of information are your users submitting?
If your website does not receive much traffic, then the boost to SEO rankings might not actually be worth the investment. If you have a popular site with many visitors, a small boost could make a huge difference.
When the majority of personal information being submitted is limited to email addresses, such as on a blog, increasing the security of your website might not be your number one priority. If credit card details and other sensitive information is being submitted, then the benefits of implementing HTTPS are huge.
HTTPS Does NOT Prevent All Types Of Attacks
It's important to bear in mind that making the switch to HTTPS does not mean your site is fully protected. There are a variety of ways your site could still be compromised, including DDOS attacks, brute force attacks, website server or network hacks and software or SSL vulnerabilities (2).
P.S. We'd love to hear your thoughts or questions on the importance of using HTTPS and how it affects SEO and website security. Don't be shy.
