Why should you have your website in HTTPS?
Cotswold Web • 17 October 2017
You may have noticed an increasing number of websites recently with an address starting with ‘https’.
What is it for?
And should you have it too?
The answer is yes for two big reasons – it’s more secure and Google loves it!
The addition of the s onto http simply stands for ‘secure’. When a website is securedby an SSL certificate – meaning the connection is secure and sensitive data isprotected – HTTPS appears in the website’s URL.
When a visitor to your HTTPS site looks at your web address, they will see apadlock, giving them the reassurance that their information is safe.
Using HTTPS means your website is authenticated and visitors can feel confidentthat their data and privacy are being protected. It provides encryption when sendingor receiving data, such as credit card details. This protects against theft of personalinformation, eavesdropping by less reputable organisations or tampering with thecontents of the communication.
A visitor or customer to an HTTPS website can feel pretty confident that they arecommunicating with the site they want to communicate with, rather than an impostortrying to steal their personal information or bank details.
Once upon a time HTTPS was used mainly by companies taking secure paymentsover the internet, but it is increasingly becoming the norm for all websites.
The websites we design at Cotswold Web come with SSL as standard. So whether you’re going for a small brochure site or a large ecommerce site, you can be sure that security is at the top of our agenda.
And if security isn’t enough to make you want to switch to HTTPS, maybe Google will?
We all know that our websites are worth next to nothing without Google. If your site doesn’t rank highly on Google searches, nobody is ever going to find your business or your products.
Google wants to protect its own integrity, as well as the safety of the internet and its users. So when users connect to a site through its search engine, Google wants to know that the site is going to be secure. And the best way to ensure security is through a HTTPS site. The knock-on effect of this is that HTTPS sites will rank higher in searches than plain old http.
Ultimately, Google would like to see everyone on the web using HTTPS as standard to keep us all safe on the internet. Making the switch really is a no-brainer.
If you haven’t done it yet, what are you waiting for?
We all know that our websites are worth next to nothing without Google. If your site doesn’t rank highly on Google searches, nobody is ever going to find your business or your products.
Google wants to protect its own integrity, as well as the safety of the internet and its users. So when users connect to a site through its search engine, Google wants to know that the site is going to be secure. And the best way to ensure security is through a HTTPS site. The knock-on effect of this is that HTTPS sites will rank higher in searches than plain old http.
Ultimately, Google would like to see everyone on the web using HTTPS as standard to keep us all safe on the internet. Making the switch really is a no-brainer.
If you haven’t done it yet, what are you waiting for?
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