HTTPS vs HTTP

Hi -

Can anyone tell me if its worth switching to HTTPS? We have a site with c. 500 pages so far and continue to add every day.

Should we switch? And if so, what are the issues to look out for? I've read that Google will prioritise your HTTPS pages going forward - should I remove the HTTP ones? Or do they stay automatically?

Backlinks - we have done limited back linking to date so not too much of an issue there, though I'd be interested to know if all HTTP backlinks then become irrelevant?

Thanks,

HTTPS is the secure version of HTTP, the purpose of https to secure your data between your browser and the website that you are connected to. The 'S' at the end of HTTPS stands for 'Secure'.

Sooner or later you will have to, you might as well just do it now to avoid dropdown toolbars saying your site is unsafe in the future

I believe there was a thread in this forum that was exactly about this issue.

In the end switching to HTTPS had zero affect on his rankings.

As wonderpunter said you'll probably have to end up doing it sooner or later..

All our sites have made the switch from HTTP to HTTPS, it's a relatively easy process and as others have mentioned worth doing to future proof your site.

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Originally Posted by casionmark

Hi -

Can anyone tell me if its worth switching to HTTPS? We have a site with c. 500 pages so far and continue to add every day.

Should we switch? And if so, what are the issues to look out for? I've read that Google will prioritise your HTTPS pages going forward - should I remove the HTTP ones? Or do they stay automatically?

Backlinks - we have done limited back linking to date so not too much of an issue there, though I'd be interested to know if all HTTP backlinks then become irrelevant?

Thanks,

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Hello,

I just put two of my sites in Https.
Important images. Your banners, your logos, everything must be hosted in https.
If the direct link is not a problem, the images yes.

Migrate to HTTPS.

It is a factor, whatever the other says. If might not be the biggest factor out there but it will give you more edge over your competitors. With time it will become bigger factor.

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Originally Posted by casionmark

Hi -

Can anyone tell me if its worth switching to HTTPS? We have a site with c. 500 pages so far and continue to add every day.

Should we switch? And if so, what are the issues to look out for? I've read that Google will prioritise your HTTPS pages going forward - should I remove the HTTP ones? Or do they stay automatically?

Backlinks - we have done limited back linking to date so not too much of an issue there, though I'd be interested to know if all HTTP backlinks then become irrelevant?

Thanks,

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If you have forms on your site, it is pretty much going to be a requirement. In October, Chrome will be warning anyone filling out a form on a http site that it isn't secure.

At the end of the day, you might as well do it. You can get a free one from Let's Encrypt and many hosting providers already integrate with them for easy install. Google want the internet to be secure so why fight with Google.

I have recommended all my client to migrate to SSL and any new client sites have it included. If they come with a site, I will get it for them.

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Originally Posted by casionmark

Hi -

Can anyone tell me if its worth switching to HTTPS? We have a site with c. 500 pages so far and continue to add every day.

Should we switch? And if so, what are the issues to look out for? I've read that Google will prioritise your HTTPS pages going forward - should I remove the HTTP ones? Or do they stay automatically?

Backlinks - we have done limited back linking to date so not too much of an issue there, though I'd be interested to know if all HTTP backlinks then become irrelevant?

Thanks,

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Hello, casinomark, If I were you, I would certainly stick with HTTPS over HTTP any day. It's much more secure to be working with for sure. :-)

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Originally Posted by kelemen

Migrate to HTTPS.

It is a factor, whatever the other says. If might not be the biggest factor out there but it will give you more edge over your competitors. With time it will become bigger factor.

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I'm certain that I've read that it is a ranking factor numerous times. How much of a factor I can't seem to find any info really. I think I may finally have some anecdotal evidence soon though.

I'm in the process of moving to new hosting. Hosting w/https. Been wanting to do it for a while on our main site. Today, I was digging through the SERPS and I came to one of our best kw. One we are, in the last week or so, slipping down in the rankings for. As I was looking over the top 10 results to see who had what spot, I noticed something curious... my site was the only one without https ranking on the first page of one of our top KW.

Will be curious to see if any SERP adjustments take place post upgrade. AFAI'm concerned, our article is the best one of the top 10 results.

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Originally Posted by kelemen

With time it will become bigger factor.

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It's a two minute switch - it says NOTHING about the validity of the site or quality of the site as a destination.
Why would it "become a bigger factor" on pages that do NOT collect information?

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Originally Posted by TheGooner

It's a two minute switch - it says NOTHING about the validity of the site or quality of the site as a destination.
Why would it "become a bigger factor" on pages that do NOT collect information?

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I agree with what you're saying. However, let me speculate... It is Google's will. If they say it's important, it is. At least to us who earn money from the organic traffic they send. One reason that it could be important to them, besides the safety of using forms/logins/etc, is perhaps related to analytics. The whole https to http losing referrer information / "direct traffic" in analytics reports. http://inboundly.com.au/fix-referrer-issue-https-sites/

HTTPS is a Google ranking signal, one of ~200, though it doesn't make any sense whatsoever to use HTTPS technology on a site that doesn't process payments or/and hold other sensitive information.

But Google is so obviously on a mission to make all websites switch to HTTPS, regardless of whether they process sensitive information or not. Hence the red warning when a site doesn't use HTTPS.

We can reasonably expect the penalty to non-HTTPS sites to only get bigger.

You have to switch.

There wont be any issues.
All indexed http, will later be re indexed to https.

Ultimately, Google want to direct their customers a safe, secure website with valid content. If I were Google, I would be sending them to secure sites before non secure sites :)

Https does not truly make any site better and Paul said it well

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it says NOTHING about the validity of the site or quality of the site as a destination.

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I personally have always felt they had other motivations when they did this...

The use of Google analytics went up exponentially since pushing this and making everyone think it was needed, even on sites where it truly is unnecessary.

If the site does not collect data, if there are no forms, if there is no login, what "data" needs secured? What data are you trying to stop someone from capturing?

Rick
Universal4

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Originally Posted by universal4

If the site does not collect data, if there are no forms, if there is no login, what "data" needs secured? What data are you trying to stop someone from capturing?

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I've read something about some http only sites being able to more user data because they aren't secure. I have no idea how that would work and how https would stop it. But that, as crudely as I relayed it, is what I read.

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Originally Posted by universal4

I personally have always felt they had other motivations when they did this...

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I'm certain they have other motivations. They always do. They are in fact, evil.

Well if you go back to the beginning when this all started, there were MANY reports about third party stats programs and traffic counters etc having issues providing more accurate data, and in those days the google guru's all said....just use Google's stuff... (point)

As for more trouble capturing user data, such as original source of traffic or click, keywords etc...using google's analytics captures all that, so if other click tracking and stats programs have trouble capturing or recording any single metric a webmaster might want (and google doesn't) who wins?

I do know many stats programs had to change and adjust for https, but how many clients did they lose during that time....to google?

Outcome? Ye[ it most likely will become a more important signal over time.

Fair reasoning behind why site owners have to use an un-necessary technology based on that? You decide, as we may not agree on that answer.

Rick
Universal4

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Originally Posted by universal4

As for more trouble capturing user data, such as original source of traffic or click, keywords etc...using google's analytics captures all that,

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You're likely correct Rick, as this is your specialty, insofar as the sneaky tricks big G was pulling.

I would like to point out however, that as I understand it, some of that GA data is not fully reported because of HTTP vs HTTPS. The referrer information being lost in some cases from HTTPS sites referring to HTTP sites. This data shows up in GA as "direct" traffic without attributions to its source instead of showing up in the referral column with actual data. For example, here is the "direct" channel traffic from one of my sites GA for September:

Attachment 6227

Note the two big spikes? The first was an article about Phil Hellmuth flashing his wife's naughty bits on "accident" on Twitch.tv that got a link from somewhere unknown. The second spike was when an article of ours got picked up and linked to by The Merkle. There was no referrer data from that site, but the spike corresponds to the day the piece dropped, so I'm certain that this is an https > http referrer loss of data instance. I believe, from what I've read, that if this particular site of mine was https, I'd be able to see the referrer info proving the second was The Merkle and also get to know see who the first spike was from because I have no idea on that one.

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Originally Posted by PROFRBcom

I'm certain that I've read that it is a ranking factor numerous times. How much of a factor I can't seem to find any info really. I think I may finally have some anecdotal evidence soon though.

I'm in the process of moving to new hosting. Hosting w/https. Been wanting to do it for a while on our main site. Today, I was digging through the SERPS and I came to one of our best kw. One we are, in the last week or so, slipping down in the rankings for. As I was looking over the top 10 results to see who had what spot, I noticed something curious... my site was the only one without https ranking on the first page of one of our top KW.

Will be curious to see if any SERP adjustments take place post upgrade. AFAI'm concerned, our article is the best one of the top 10 results.

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It's day 5 since we upgraded the main site to HTTPS (and new fast hosting). I have set canonical to https:// on main page, updated xml sitemap to generate https addresses, added https to GA and WMT and made them preferred, and 301'd the old http:// and www. versions of the site to the new https version... I even went to WMT and put in a few crawl+render+index requests to our most popular pages new https:// versions.

Yet still all the SERPS are returning HTTP://EXAMPLE.COM (our prior canonical). How long does it typically take Google/Y/B to start returning https:// results in the SERPS? I'm starting to wonder if somehow I overlooked something...