Secured sites now climbing faster in search rankings

We are seeing the swift rise of SSL Certificates among companies that are ranking highly on Google search results.

Trust has always been a major issue for people transacting business online. They need to be assured they are dealing with a real company, which has robust security in place, before they pass over personal details and credit card information. 

That’s why we are seeing the swift rise of SSL Certificates among companies that are ranking highly on Google search results.

Basically, SSL encrypts communications between your browser and web server, making your site much more difficult to hack.

In 2014, Google said it wouldn’t have much impact, then added the caveat: “But over time, we may decide to strengthen it, because we’d like to encourage all website owners to switch from HTTP to HTTPS to keep everyone safe on the web.”

Industry leader Moz advised at the time that this was a small but important factor in search engine optimisation. By small, around 1% according to Google.

Fast forward two years to 2016 and those of us in the business of marketing client websites have noticed some significant changes in search rankings. One of them is that websites with a security certificate are showing up on page one with increasing frequency.

The latest industry survey by Moz reveals: “As of late June, our tracking data shows that 32.5% (almost one-third) of page-one Google results now use the "https:" protocol.”

That’s up from only 7%. So clearly Google is rewarding companies that are making their websites more secure.

Proceed with caution

Technology is often complex and the addition of a security certificate to your website can actually backfire if you don’t do it correctly.

Wired magazine made the switch and chronicled some of the problems it encountered. It’s a recommended read: https://www.wired.com/2016/05/wired-first-big-https-rollout-snag/
The best advice is to ask plenty of questions of the company you choose to make the switchover.

Then watch your search results with an eagle eye. Automated reports will give you good information about what’s happening.

Get in touch

To find out more about how adding SSL to your site can benefit your business, contact us today.