Gary Illyes, Webmaster Trends Analyst at Google, recently did an interview with Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land. Part of their interview included this exchange:
DS: Let’s do audience questions now. First up is asking for an update for HTTPS.
GI: As soon as we see a document that begins with HTTPS, it gets a small boost.
This is not new. Google has been giving a small boost to https pages for a couple of years, but keeping with our Game-ChangingMindset for Summer theme, instead of sitting back and waiting for everyone to get back in town after their vacations, this is something quick and easy you can do right now.
You may have also noticed that Google’s Chrome web browser is indicating “Not secure” in the address bar when you go to an http site. Some people may become wary of using your website because of this, so switching to HTTPS is not just about search rankings but also user experience.
If you provide online giving on your website, it’s critical that your website is https and website data is encrypted. That’s why we included an SSL certificate in with YODA – Your Online Donation App.
How To Switch to HTTPS?
It’s a 4 step process:
- Buy an SSL Certificate – If your website is hosted by OurChurch.Com you can buy an SSL Certificate here. If not, ask your hosting company if they offer SSL certificates or if you have to get yours from another company.
- Validate the SSL Certificate – The company that provides the SSL will ask for some information and require you respond to an email to validate you own and manage your domain name. If you purchase your SSL through OurChurch.Com, we do this for you.
- Install the SSL Certificate – If your website is hosted with OurChurch.Com’s Christian / church web hosting, we do this for you. If not ask your hosting company about this.
- Update your website configuration – If you built your website with OurChurch.Com’s WP-EZ Church Website Builder, we take care of this for you. If you created your own website, you’ll need to update the base URL of your website possibly other settings.
Comments and Questions
Is your website https? Why or why not? Got any comments or questions about SSL certificates? Post a comment.
9 Comments
Great article, I found it very informative!
Indeed. I was not aware, that HTTPS sites have a given boost from Google. Thanks for the tip!
Great article 🙂 Paul, I have a question, for example, if the site not enabled SSL (https) before, but enabled now, will it affect the site rank? My friend told me that is not good for our sites, really? 🙂 Thank you 🙂
It sounds to me like Gary Illyes is saying if you switch your website from http to https it will give you a small boost in search rankings. Why does your friend think it’s not good for websites?
Hi Paul, thanks for your reply 🙂 Yes my friend told me that if we want to enable the https, we should enable it at the beginning of our site creating, he told me because we created backlinks to the http before, if now turn to enable https, all the backlinks which created to http will be no usages, is it true? thanks 🙂
If you switch to https you should set up a 301 redirect redirecting all http to https. That will ensure the value of all links to http is passed to https
Great answer 🙂 Got it, thank you Paul, you are the best 🙂
is there any problem turning http to https
Not that I’m aware of. Have you seen problems?