Let’s begin at the bottom of the pile. What do the abbreviations HTTP and HTTPS mean? And what are the differences between the two?
HTTP
HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol) is an application protocol designed to transfer data via the internet. It was first introduced in 1991 and has since been successfully used in sending and receiving information all throughout the World Wide Web.
HTTP provides better browsing speed than HTTPS. This is primarily because of the fact that it doesn’t record data from previous sessions, leaving it with nothing to remember. This feature of HTTP is called being stateless.
HTTP was common at a time when security wasn’t as significant as it is today and when transactional websites weren’t so common. But web security is a major issue today. Password login forms and shopping cart checkouts are made available on lots of eCommerce websites. Such websites have to make the move to HTTPS. We’ll look at why that is important and what HTTPS brings to the table.
HTTPS and SSL
Both the HTTPS and HTTP protocols are fundamentally the same. But HTTPS brings with it a whole host of benefits. Firstly, it prevents unauthorized access to your website. It does this with the help of a certification called SSL (Secure Sockets Layer), which goes by the name TLS (Transport Layer Security) these days. SSL or TLS helps to transfer data in a secure manner.
SSL certificates are available a dime a dozen. However, you do have to pick and choose which CA (Certificate Authority) you want to get issued a certificate from. There are many popular CAs. Comodo SSL certificates make a great choice since they are available at different rates and you can choose according to your convenience. Comodo SSL certificates are used by 25% of the Fortune 1000 companies. Over 700K businesses also use Comodo SSL worldwide.
Now for HTTPS. HTTPS and SSL are not interchangeable terms. They are two different systems that work in tandem in order to create a safe environment for the transfer of data between a browser and server.
Websites secured by SSL also provide data encryption, data integrity, and authentication. By encryption, we mean that the users’ sensitive data is protected and prevented from being stolen. Data integrity helps to keep files from being corrupted and authentication prevents the site from being hacked into. Hacking attempts are nipped in the bud. Man-in-the-Middle (MitM) attacks are averted.
Now that we’ve talked about HTTPS, what relevance does it have for search engine rankings and consequently, SEO?
The SEO Impact
Effect on rankings
Google has been the front-runner in pushing to make the internet a safer place by asking sites to switch to HTTPS. Google also made an official announcement in the year 2014 that HTTPS will be used as a ranking signal.
Even though it is widely believed that HTTPS is only taken as a lightweight ranking factor, it does play an important role when it comes to breaking ties between sites. If your site has the same ranking as another when the results of content quality, keyword intensity, page load speed etc. are taken into account, it will eventually come down to who has HTTPS. The HTTPS site is given the preference in tie-breakers.
But that’s not all there is to it. It has come to our notice that more than 40% of the first-page organic search results in Google are HTTPS sites. As more and more webmasters switch to HTTPS (taking into account the added SEO benefits), the weight of HTTPS as a ranking factor keeps on increasing. The fact that this tendency to switch from HTTP to HTTPS has been on the rise was clearly outlined in this article by computerworld.com back in March 2017.
Interestingly though, the world’s second largest search engine – Bing – does not use HTTPS as a ranking factor!
Effect on Traffi
HTTPS improves the trust that users have on your site. Not having HTTPS means you are vulnerable to MitM attacks and other third party attempts to hack and fish when the users are on public WiFi. Such entities can inject malicious ads into your website. HTTPS prevents such occurrences, thus improving user trust.
This plays a huge role in increasing organic traffic to your website. Customer trust improves customer loyalty, thus improving conversion rates as well.
Effect on performance
It is a popular belief that HTTPS slows down websites since there are some overheads, such as encryption of the site before allowing access to the user. But this is not quite the scenario.
Latest versions of browsers support HTTP/2. HTTP/2 makes a lot of performance improvements compared to its predecessor – HTTP/1.1. It involves header compression, which reduces the size of requests made to load resources such as CSS and JavaScript images. This reduces the page load time in cases where there are lots of such images but doesn’t have much effect when there aren’t so many such resources. So in some cases, HTTP/2 does showcase improved performance.
While you may not see massive improvements in page speed, HTTPS most certainly doesn’t have a negative impact on loading.
Migrating to HTTPS
The migration from HTTP to HTTPS includes some SEO concerns. The main concern is that the process should preserve organic rankings.
The most important thing to take note of is to index your HTTPS site.
Make sure that you give a Certificate Signing Request. There are many popular CA but as we touched upon earlier, you can always depend on Comodo CA to help you obtain the exact SSL certificate for your requirement, whether it is Single, Wildcard or Multi-domain SSL. Do not forget to register your site with Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools. You will get updates on your site’s performance with the help of these tools.
So are the SEO effects worth enough to make the move to HTTPS?
Certainly. HTTPS has made dominant strides in improving customer trust. Seeing the security padlock and the HTTPS notation keeps the customers from doubting the authenticity of your site. It keeps them loyal and keeps them coming back.
HTTPS should not only be preferred because of security and other positive SEO impacts but also because it improves traffic to your site.
To sum it up, HTTPS will keep on gaining traction with the internet community- both with webmasters and users. It will keep getting more preference. Hence it will be wise to make the move as soon as you can, and not wait until it’s too late.
