What to Know About HTTPS for SEO

In late 2014, Google announced that websites using HTTPS would get a minor boost above the sites with the regular HTTP.

But what is HTTPS and who should consider making the switch?

HTTPS is the more secured version of a website. You will usually find it on data-collecting websites or those with a login. Think Facebook, your email, or a government website.

PayPal uses HTTPS to secure the transferring and retrieval of your funds.

It uses SSL technology that basically causes all information going to and from the website to be encrypted in transit, thus protecting the user and site from hacking attempts for private information.

But for some websites, this isn’t quite needed. For example, with data-based information, much like a library’s catalog website, having encryption wouldn’t be a huge benefit as your data isn’t being collected–there isn’t an area for you to insert your name, phone number, or address, etc.

However, if your business does collect sensitive information, you may like to consider beginning the transition to HTTPS. This would require a website to pay for the encryption SSL certificate and installing it onto your servers.

Your existing website HTTP would need a redirect to the HTTPS side (done through your hosting company) and all existing pages would also need to be edited with the HTTPS or a relative URL.

This can be a bit time-consuming, especially if you’re looking at a decent number of pages to be edited. But knowing Google and the trends it likes to follow in the name of consumers, this is only a warning to move on over to HTTPS as it is sure to be worth more weight in the coming months as a ranking factor.

In fact, we may consider doing such a thing ourselves soon.

What about you? Are you considering making the switch to HTTPS? Have you? What made you decide to switch over?

Let us know in the comments below!