SSL the future of SEO?
There’s been a large amount of discussion in the past around encryption and SEO. Looking back to 2013 when Google made the decision to encrypt keywords, we saw some powerful headlines such as ‘HTTPS Encryption will kill Organic SEO’ and ‘Say Goodbye to Keyword Data’.
These headlines in hindsight were a bit exaggerated; encryption isn’t all doom and gloom. If anything we’re moving towards a more secure and anonymous internet and SEOs have had to adjust and compensate for the lack of keyword data. We’ve had to create a broader, rounder strategy, and have had to open our minds to other marketing efforts, creating better experiences for our clients.
mattcutts</a> personally wants Google to give a ranking boost to sites deploying SSL but doesn't mean it will happen <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/smx?src=hash">#smx</a></p>— Barry Schwartz (rustybrick) March 13, 2014
Back in April, Matt Cutts was reported by the Wall Street Journal to be pushing Google for encrypted pages to have higher search rankings, and Google look to be on the same page. The 6th of August marked the announcement on Google’s Webmaster Central blog of HTTPS as a ranking signal . At the moment it’s only 1% of search queries affected and sits behind other signals such as high quality content, but it’s definitely a move in the right direction. They mention that if all things go well they may strengthen the signal to rank HTTPS higher.
Further to this, recent reports such as Sandvine have highlighted how encrypted web traffic has more than doubled since the NSA spying revelations, not to mention the Heartbleed bug. Also, projects such as the spdy protocol are helping to reduce encrypted web page load time so the negatives of serving HTTPS rather than HTTP are becoming obsolete.
However, many SEOs often forget the so called ‘implications’ of entire site-SSL, with the usual headlines such as ‘Does HTTPS damage SEO’ or ‘Can HTTPS impact ranking?’. With many failing to understand its correct implementation, resulting in negative impact to their site. The argument goes all the way back to 2011 when questions were even asked directly to Google Webmasters, see the video below
In the coming weeks we’ll be running through how to properly implement HTTPS on your site and deciding what kind of certificate you need, as well as how to correctly implement the site move. Watch this space!