Let’s start off by giving the definition of HTTPS for those that aren’t familiar.  Have you ever noticed when you go to a website, the website URL in the address bar starts with HTTP or HTTPS?  Well, HTTPS (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure) is the secure version of HTTP, which is the protocol that the internet uses to transfer data (all your website content) between your browser and the website that you’re connected to.

Why you Should Switch to HTTPS

To have your website use HTTPS is always a good idea since it represents that your website is secure. A lot of people, whether they are computer savvy or not, recognize the HTTPS and a lock symbol as security and won’t go to a website, unless it has at least the HTTPS. Sometimes, you might see the HTTPS, but not a lock. This means the webpage has secure and unsecured data on it. A fully secure webpage and/or website will always have a lock associated with HTTPS. If you are logging in to a website and need to enter your password or put in credit card information you definitely, without a doubt want to make sure the website is secure by confirming that HTTPS is in the address bar.

More Reasons to Switch to HTTPS

  1. On August 06, 2014, Google announced HTTPS as a ranking signal, which only affected fewer than 1% of global queries.  That was back in 2014.  Any impact on your Google search ranking is a good thing.  Over time, Google may raise the points it gives for being HTTPS.
  2. On Dec 17, 2015, Google Webmaster Central Blog had an article, Indexing HTTPS pages by default. What does this mean?  It means when Google crawls your website, it will index an HTTPS webpage as opposed to the equivalent HTTP version. The bottom line, Google’s goal is for the user to have a better online experience.  They do this by showing users HTTPS pages in search results, instead of the HTTP equivalent in hopes to decrease the user’s risk of browsing an insecure website that can make them vulnerable to content injection attacks.
  3. On September 8, 2016, Google’s Security Blog had an article, Moving towards a more secure web, which basically was an article stating that its Chrome browser will be calling out websites that have HTTP pages with password or credit card fields.  They would do this by actually stating the website is Not secure in the address bar (Chrome 56 which comes out Jan 2017).

I hope I provided you with enough information on why I think you should have a secure website.  With the way, the world is nowadays, with rapidly advancing technology, and hacking being more commonplace, you can read the writing on the wall.  It’s becoming more imperative to protect your data by using HTTPS.  The faster you convert to HTTPS the safer you’ll feel.  As an added bonus, you’ll have the potential of getting more visitors.

One last thing. Moving from HTTP to HTTPS can impact your SEO in a negative way if not done correctly.  There’s more to than just converting your website pages to HTTPS.  For example, you have to convert all your internal links, all your local citations that have your website link, add a new sitemap, etc.  Yes, it can get pretty complex and a lot of work, so if you have any questions or would like us to install your HTTPS certificate and perform the necessary SEO, don’t hesitate to contact us. We can also help you purchase an HTTPS certificate.

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