A Basic Discussion on HTTPS Security Protocol

Google declared it long ago that HTTPS will become a ranking signal. And now, when it is coming true to its words, the SEO industry is gearing up to face the new challenge. In this situation, businesses of almost every possible size and shape want to get secure encryption for their websites to enjoy certain boost in Google ranking. Best SEO company in London has some suggestions for you in the following paragraphs that will make it easier for your website switching over to HTTPS from HTTP.

Before getting into the topic, Manchester based SEO experts want to discuss with SEO Industry what HTTPS is and how it can affect optimising your business websites for the search engines.

HTTPS – What it is: HTTPS is a secured mode of exchanging information on the web. The procedure uses a number of additional measures to protect the data while being transferred. When you are using the common HTTP protocol, browsers and web servers exchange your data in plain text. Thus, your exchanged information is vulnerable to pass out to unauthorised hands. On the other hand, when you use HTTPS protocol, the same data gets protected by the following features:

• Encryption: Encrypting data helps to keep it safe from unauthorised users’ access.
• Data integrity: It is not possible to tamper, modify or corrupt data either intentionally or accidentally without being noticed.
• Authentication: It assures the transferred data reach their intented destination without falling into wrong hands.

Thus, sensitive, personal data like credit card details are safely transferred over the web.

• HTTPS for my website – Why: Experts from a renowned SEO company in Manchester confirm that, if your site is an eCommerce store, integrated with online payment gateways, then HTTPS is the standard for you. If your website collects personal information from users, like account login, eMail subscription, comments and such others, using HTTPS will help build trust among your audience. However, it is not mandatory for purely informational websites to use HTTPS protocol. But, it is recommended to protect their users from being victim to phising and other scam practices. To protect the transferred data, HTTPS uses SSL certificate.
• Partial HTTPS protection: Most websites use HTTPS to protect only the particular login or checkout pages. This partial switch over to HTTPS has its disadvantages. It cannot protect a user’s cookies and session IDs. If you do protect only the submit form and not your landing page with HTTPs, hackers may intercept the unsecured pages of the site. Thus, your customers may end up entering their credit card details to a completely different website.
• HTTPS protection – Rank boosting: HTTPS protocol will help boosting your website ranking. So, it is important for your website to undergo the transition from HTTP protocol to HTTPS protocol. Experts from a renowned SEO agency in Manchester suggest clients to switch over to HTTPS protocol to reap greater benefits.

HTTPS Switch Over - Advantages

• It ensures greater security to your users from unauthorized access to various sensitive information.
• There are many online businesses that handle cardholder information. They can use this feature to comply with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (or, PCI DSS). 
• An consciousness about online fraud is rising, many customers just deny making a purchase on a site that does not have HTTPS security protocol. Thus, you can expect higher conversion on your site by switching over to HTTPS.
• It will add to your trust factor to your potential customers.

Dis-advantages:

• Switching over to HTTPS protocol requires SSL certificates, which are costly and have to be renewed from time to time.
• Experts providing SEO services in Manchester, also point out that each SSL certificate requires a dedicated private IP address.
• As HTTPS protocol will require encrypt and decrypt information, it can make your website slightly slower. Use SPDY and OCSP Stapling supports to overcome this issue.
• Without proper server configuration, it will also be difficult to redirect your content to HTTPS.
• The majority of social signals that you have earned over time will be erased as a result of making the shift.
• Adsence revenue may suffer a drop.
• A number of external apps do not support HTTPS

Hope this information will help take realistic decision on how and when you need to switch your website to HTTPS protocol.