Editorial Staff
Whenever you’re browsing on the internet, you might notice the lock icon on the left hand side of the URL bar.
A closed lock indicates that the website is secured. If it is not, then the website is not secured and the connection is vulnerable to attack.
In this lesson, we’re going to explain what is HTTPS and how they play an important role in the search engine optimization.
What is HTTPS?
Let’s start from the basics.
The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is the foundation of the World Wide Web, and is used to load web pages using hypertext links.
Meanwhile, HTTPs (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Security) is the secured version of the basic HTTP.
Just by having the extra “s” behind, a basic HTTP is secured.
With the additional security from HTTPS, it protect a user’s connection in three layers:
- Encryption ensures that a user’s activity cannot be tracked or their information stolen
- Data integrity prevents files from being corrupted as they’re transferred
- And authentication protects against attacks and builds user trust
When installed on a web server, an SSL certificate activates the padlock and the https protocol and allows secure connections from a web server to a browser.
To identify whether the site has SSL or not, it can be done easily by seeing the presence of the the padlock besides the URL bar.
In 2018, Google started to implement that all the HTTP sites to show “Not secure” warning beside the URL bar.
With this update, most of the sites are starting to move to HTTPS from HTTP.
How Does HTTPS Helps in SEO?
With the SSL certificate, a secure site helps on various ways from the SEO perspective.
1. HTTPS is a Ranking Signal
In 2014, Google announced HTTPS as one of their ranking signals.
This is because, providing a security for their users is the top priority for Google.
It means, by just activating the SSL certificate, your website already have the slight ranking boost compared to other website that don’t have.
2. Reduce Bounce Rate & Increase The Visiting Time Duration
Nowadays, most of the internet users concern about a site’s SSL.
A site with the “not secure” warning and missing padlock will easily scare off visitors.
As the result, they will not stay in the unsecured site for long and will bounce back most of the time.
And with high bounce rate and low visiting time duration, HTTP sites starting to lose the search ranking while all the HTTPS started to boost up.
How to Implement HTTPS or SSL?
If you’re using WordPress, you can easily switch to HTTPS with the site health.
To access it, go to Tools > Site Health.
Then, site health will tell you if your site is ready to switch from HTTP to HTTPS.
You can just switch just by one click!
As the importance of HTTPS has grown significantly, the process to update to HTTPS has simplified.
Now, a secured site is easily accessible to every webmaster.
