Will dropping SSL certificate affect a sites SEO?

[AVC-Invest]

Hi all,

I have around 25 websites that are due for renewal, and the domain company i use wants to bill me for each and every SSL certificate ontop of the domain renewal fee.

Will this impact my websites SEO if no SSL certificate?

I understand that as i do not collect customer data and do not sell products/services on my websites there is no legal regulations on me having a SSL certificate, but dont want this to negatively impact me on the search engines.

[FictionNet]

Switch host.

[ChRR]

SSL nowadays is free, idk why they charge you... you should consider moving to a different hosting company...

[baldidiot]

If the sites are indexed as https then Google will send traffic to the https version, meaning users will get a security warning. Google definitely has a preference for https so if it’s displaying that version in the serps it’ll take a while to shake.

If your host doesn’t offer free certs (eg. lets encrypt) just use cloudflare. Can keep your existing hosting set up, just route through the cloudflare NS.

[universal4]

Agree that it will most likely have an affect n rankings.

Absolutely zero reason a host should charge for ssl, no matter what type of hosting it is.

Rick
Universal4

[chaumi]

Agreed. I'd say it's not absolutely certain what will happen, but most likely something bad will...and based on that and the fact there are ways around it, it's a no-brainer to avoid finding out.