5 Reasons Your Site Should Be HTTPS in 2021

posted byPatrick Chemoul10/12/2020

If you are anyone like me, you would have definitely asked at some point, Why It’s Important to Upgrade Your Site to HTTPS.

What is that extra "s" for? Here you will discover all about it!

Because, that "S" turned out to stand for Security, which is undoubtedly the most challenging factor this day, especially when it comes to protecting your valuable data online.

HTTPS: Why it is essential for all the website to enable HTTPS in 2021?

To know why, you should first know exactly what the heck this HTTPS is.

If you notice a little padlock in the address bar of the web browser, means the website you are visiting is secure.

A secure website means that the data or information the user is sending to or receiving is encrypted.

Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) is a better and much more protected version of HTTPS.

It transfers data in an encrypted format which basically prevents the hackers from accessing or modifying any data in the process of transferring data between the browser and web servers.

HTTPS manages to establish an encrypted link using protocols like SSL (Secure Socket Layer) or the new version of SSL, Transport Layer Security (TLS).

Now, let's highlight and analyze the five most important reasons that why your site should be HTTPS in 2021:

1. Creating a Safe & Advanced Space

Back in January 2017, Google Chrome started displaying “Not Secure” in the address bar of the http websites asking for users for login or credits cards details.

That “s” with the http was becoming essential.

Users were now aware whether the site they are putting their information on is secure or not.

As the need for security and privacy raised, much protected and secure web has been noticed. According to google in 2020:

  • More than 68% traffic of Google Chrome on both Windows and Android is secured by 2020
  • More than 78% traffic of both Mac and Chrome OS is protected by 2020
  • Out of 100 top sites, 81 of them by default use HTTPS by now

Secure is also faster. HTTPS is far more protected and technically advanced network protocol solutions as compared to HTTP.

It is considered to be superior and make your business space better as it offers a lot of improvements in performance and new powerful advanced features which are not available with HTTP.

SSL is also required for AMP.

Accelerated Mobile Pages, which was started to improve mobile experience for users, AMP HTTP pages load instantly, making web browsing secure and fast.

2. Making Search Better

The user of 2021 is much aware and smart.

The visitors of your website want to know whether the website they are using is secure and should be trusted or not.

They quickly notice a lock on the top of the web browser search tab.

If the client of your website feels comfortable with your site, they will surely give your business and will revisit soon.

As per Global Sign Survey, over 84% customers would change their mind about making a purchase from your site if they feel their data is not secure as most of them are concerned about their data being misused online.

A good seller will always make sure that the customer, purchasing from their store, is 100% satisfied so that he/she become your permanent client.

Make your customers and prospects feel safe and give them peace of mind, whether it’s in your store or on the internet.

Google algorithms need websites to positively compete for top search ranking, every minute.

It’s good to see two websites which could both rank for client’s query, determinately running to the finishing line of results on top.

But what if there is a tie between the both?

Here, a tire breaker is involved and its https.

Gary Illy's who is a Webmaster Trends Analyst give an explanation that if all the signals of quality are on the same level for both results, the one enabling HTTPS is going to get the extra push of boost which is required to outflank the other result.

This basically all goes back to the concept that Google is persistently solving it for the users plus makes constant variations to its algorithm which develop a better user search experience, which is why our next point make sense.

3. AMP requires SSL

Here, I would like to breakdown few pieces of information.

AMP stands for Accelerated Mobile Pages.

This is basically a technology that enable certain pages load almost in few seconds on the mobile device.

So, when a user search for anything through Google on their mobile device, they may notice that some of the results popping up has a lightning bolt icon next to them.

This represents that they are AMP ready.

Let's give it a try, search for your favorite singing group on your phone, one the very first page of your search results, the one which lightning bolt icon with it, will load instantly.

Also, AMP will be playing a major part in SEO in nearby time to come.

Google has decided to make it on their priority since 2017 till now.

This clearly means that the AMP ready pages will surely gain more ranking.

Don’t forget! To be able to label a website as AMP- ready, it is impossible without SSL.

Although now we know the importance of the connection between AMP and SSL, but a special attention is needed for the webmaster to be friendly, for which all the requirements of AMP should be deeply examine.

4. Boosting Search Engine Optimization

It is quite obvious that HTTPS comes with security, so it will definitely the decision that will put you in good books of Google.

There are many reasons for enabling HTTPS to have a better SEO ranking in 2021.

As it is stated, Google has confirmed the ranking boost of HTTPS sites.

Like any other signals of ranking, isolating on its own, but this should still be kept in mind.

One the other hand, the importance of switching your site to HTTPS has rapidly increased with time.

When traffic passes through an HTTPS site, the secure referral data/information is stored unlike when it passes through an HTTP site, all the data strips away.

This traffic is shown as Direct in your analyst report.

So, like this you don’t know where this traffic came from.

For the same reason, almost all the webmasters are enabling HTTPS on their websites.

More and more traffic comes to your site because of better ranking as more people will see your site, more will visit it.

Plus, when a user makes the search and look at the results, they will consider the secure site as a symbol of authority and trust, preferring this site on others.

Thus, this will improve the click-through-rate (CTR) of your site.

For all these reasons mentioned above, Google has run test and taken into account whether or not websites are using secure and encrypted connections as a signal (or factor) in their algorithms for search ranking.

There have been positive results displayed, so they are beginning to actively implement HTTPS as a ranking signal.

5. Google is Indexing Mobile

Yes! That is true.

Google has actually begin to indexing mobile, which that the google algorithms will finally and primarily will also use the mobile version of the website’s content in order to rank pages from that website.

For the purpose of indexing mobile sites, there are certain practices that google recommended, which includes the migration to a secure site, especially if you have not enable HTTPS yet.

Google has recently announced that all new websites “previously unknown to Google Search” will be indexed using mobile-first indexing starting on July 1, 2020.

Older web sites that are still not being indexed using mobile-first indexing will not be switched yet to mobile-first indexing on July 1st but be moved when those web sites are ready to be moved to mobile-first indexing.

As mentioned before also, AMP-ready pages require SSL certification which means HTTPS sites.

For Google to make sure mobile indexing of all the sites, it is essential to enable HTTPS on your website.

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