Why is everyone talking about HTTPS recently? What are the benefits of doing so? What does HTTPS have to do with SEO? Should you switch your site to HTTPS? So many questions, and thankfully, I have some answers for you in this post. Plus, learn about common problems and how to fix them, and what you need to know before you get started.
You seem like a smart cookie, so I’m not going to belittle you with boring definitions and lessons on how the internet works. Here’s my one sentence summary of HTTP and HTTPS as a recap:
HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol) rules the communication between browsers and servers. HTTPS (HyperText Transfer Protocol Secure) is simply the secure version of HTTP, encrypting the data exchanged so your information is kept secret and safe.
Let’s talk about how HTTPS impacts SEO
Google has subtly been pushing websites in the direction of HTTPS for all types of websites to make a more secure browsing experience. In 2014, they added HTTPs as a light ranking factor and declared their preference for HTTPS, although any boosts in search visibility and rankings were minimal. At that time, Google also gave the warning that they plan to improve this ranking factor and make it a stronger ranking signal in the future.
At the end of 2015, Google began cracking down on HTTP sites even further with issued warnings for SSL/TLS certificates not matching domain names (which some browsers have a hard time telling that your site is secure and may inadvertently block users from accessing). And in December, Google announced that moving forward, they’ll automatically index HTTPS pages first before the HTTP version, making HTTPS the default preferred version of your site. From your HTTP version site, Google will look to see if you have the same pages on HTTPS, and if found, will index the HTTPS version. Google will do this automatically if you haven’t set any redirects, canonicals, or preference for HTTP in your markup. It sounds like the lazy man’s plan to rely on, but is not ideal for SEO and there’s still work to do (see below).
Why does Google care?
Their mission is to help make the web a better place and to improve user security. Because most sites weren’t moving toward HTTPS, Google did what they had to by incentivizing websites to prioritize security.
Read the full article here: https://www.spinutech.com/blog/digital-marketing/what-you-need-to-know-about-https-and-seo/
