June 19, 2018
The Coming HTTPS Changes for Every Website
Search Engine Optimization | Sugar Hill | Duluth GA | Suwanee | Buford
There are changes to Google’s algorithm all the time. Some of the changes are so big they name them– usually after an animal, like “Panda.” They’re also making minor adjustments to their algorithm constantly, in order to keep search, “pure”– which is to keep it unmanipulated. That being said, there are search engine optimizers all over the planet who strive to rank websites for clients all the time. We’re an agency like that, where we take a site, work it through our process, and rank websites for clients all the time—which gets them business.
One of the things we’ve been made aware of that is going to significantly impact the web and rankings in Google is the new HTTP vs. HTTPS issue. You may notice in Google Chrome, as with other browsers, that they verify whether or night a website is secured with an SSL certificate. Up until now, most websites weren’t secured with an SSL, with the exception of ecommerce stores– security is a necessity for those. If you go to a site that is not secured, you will not see a secure sign in the top left URL bar, and if you do see one, it will say “Secured” and be green (again to the left of the URL bar).
The new catch is that Google is moving to an environment where they want sites that are secure now in order to rank them. These SSL certificates will figure significantly in the days ahead in ranking a website. If your site was created prior to now, you likely don’t have one on your site. Even the sites we’ve done over the years, again with the exception of ecommerce sites, weren’t secured with an SSL certificate. Now they’re going to need to be, whether you have an ecommerce site or not.
If you’re a client of ours on our Sitebuilder system– the good news is that the Sitebuilder folks have adjusted their platform already to accommodate this change, and all of our sites on this platform have already been updated with SSL. However, if you have a WordPress or other website, these SSL certificates need to be purchased at the hosting level, so that your site can be secured. We recommend checking with your web developer to make sure that your site is secure, or come August, when Google rolls out this new change– you may find yourself falling from page one of Google, or dropping in rankings significantly. This can truly affect your business. So make sure you take care of this now, in preparation for the upcoming change.
