SEO 

More Secure Way for Your Site, Upgrade to HTTPS

Darci Patten

HTTPS has actually been around for more than 20 years, and at first was generally utilized by sites that manage delicate information such as charge card details. Now, Google is implementing HTTPS as the basic procedure for all sites.

What is SSL / HTTPS?

HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol) is the basic system for transferring info throughout the web. For sites utilizing HTTP, all information sent in between the website server and the web browser remain in plain text, so anybody who obstructs your connection can check out any of the information going back and forth in between the website and the website visitor, consisting of passwords and monetary and individual information.
HTTPS (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure) utilizes SSL (Secured Socket Layer) to include an additional level of security by securing all interactions in between the site’s server and the internet browser utilized to access it.

An HTTPS connection guarantees three things:

Website Authentication

HTTPS ensures that your customers are communicating with the intended site and not a fake version.

Data Integrity

With HTTPS, any information transmitted between the site’s server and the site visitor’s browser can’t be altered or corrupted during transfer.

Data Encryption

The information transmitted between HTTPS sites and visitors is private and secure, so no one else can see it in its unencrypted form.

Should You Switch to SSL / HTTPS?

 Before Google starting prioritizing websites using HTTPS, only 7% of page one Google results used SSL protocol. By May 2021, 72.5% of all websites were using HTTPS as their default protocol.

How to Upgrade to HTTPS / SSL

If you would like to switch to SSL / HTTPS, here are the steps to making the transition:

  • Select, purchase and install a security certificate on your site server and make sure the certificate stays up to date.
  • Locate and update URLs for any content, including internal links, embedded videos, images, scripts, forms, etc. from HTTP to HTTPS.
  • Test the new HTTPS pages.
  • Set up 301 redirects from HTTP to HTTPS to ensure that search engines know your site’s URL has been changed, so anyone using the old URL will automatically be sent to the new URL.
  • Ensure that your site is recrawled and reindexed by Google.