HTTPS secured websites maximize SEO benefit

We don’t say it, Google says that. Google announced that adding HTTPS to websites would now aid in uplifting your search engine ranking. Among its many other crucial ranking algorithm, the search engine master came up with a new idea that could determine your website position.

Apparently, Google is a bit more concerned about cyber security and their ultimate motive is to provide relevant plus secured search results. Whatever you search on Google let it be data centers or global warming, is encrypted. However, the websites you visit after clicking on the links might not be safe. Therefore, Google included security as a ranking factor and websites are likely to improve their web position by adding the small‘s’ to http.

Why HTTPS is so important for SEO rankings?

HTTPS ensures authorized and secured transactions over the web so that the confidential and sensitive data exchanged online remains safe and is not compromised. HTTP and HTTPS share similar basic features, but https adds more security to your website.

HTTPS secure your communication by encrypting the data exchanged between the browser and the web server. Besides, the certificate assures the authenticity of website and you know that you are connected to a secured platform. But for SEO, https counts as a “very lightweight signal” when we talk about ranking factor. Here is the exact quote from Google, “For now it’s only a very lightweight signal — affecting fewer than 1% of global queries, and carrying less weight than other signals such as high-quality content — while we give webmasters time to switch to HTTPS. But over time, we may decide to strengthen it, because we’d like to encourage all website owners to switch from HTTP to HTTPS to keep everyone safe on the web.”

So that states your website won’t be ranking no. 1 overnight. Only if there is a ranking tie between two sites, the one with https might win the battle.

Migrating from HTTP to HTTPS

Upgrading to https is not a backbreaking task. All you need to have is a proper plan and set of experts who can do it for you or else you can request your web hosting provider to issue SSL certificate. But make sure to handle it efficiently. If you check out Google’s site, you will find some beneficial SEO considerations that could help you with the integration. Just to mention a few, it tells you to determine the certificate type you require, allowing Googlebot access to HTTPS, allowing page indexing and so on.

Conclusion

The certificate is a trust seal that lets your users know that they have landed on a page that will keep them safe the entire time they are there on your website. Furthermore, it’s Google’s responsibility to ensure that their users are engaging with relevant pages. Thus, websites with the green lock in the URL will get more preference in ranking.