Should I get an SSL if my non-SSL site is ranking well?
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I have a client with a local divorce law business. He's ranking really well, and I don't want to do anything to jeopardize that rank. His site does not have SSL. I feel like it would be good to get rid of the "not-secure" message from Chrome, but not important enough to risk ranks. Would love to get thoughts from this forum on this.
Thanks!
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Google Chrome shows "not secure" today forms don't matter If you look at the example website it does not have a certificate or is it using HTTPS
Because lawyers websites are considered "money or life" sites they hold more weight with Google & the public. meaning they need to be secure and trustworthy.
Hopefully, he is already updated his site if not make sure he does.
Respectfully,
Thomas
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Just a word to the wise from the not as wise....is it possible that there is a slower time of year for a divorce lawyer? I would certainly aim the transition for a slower time if possible. If you do it all perfectly, you may not take a hit. But, I don't know about you...but I'm not perfect.
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I agree with the others. Your client is going to have to convert, it's just a matter of when. The site reputation, and by association, your client's reputation, is at stake.
If you're concerned about rankings, set up a staging area and do the conversion and testing there. Baseline some key performance indicators which you can use to help determine root cause if problems arise. Hire a consultant to double check your work before you hit the migrate button. Set expectations by letting your client know that he or she may experience some short-term movement in rankings but will recover.
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PS you can use https://www.cloudflare.com/ssl/ or Let's Encrypt for free SSL certs but if you buy this has very good pricing for paid SSL certs. https://www.ssl2buy.com/
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I have the same ( I never do local but was talked into it same type of law business)
_ "but not important enough to risk ranks."_
He needs to understand today Google will not hurt you for moving to https if done correctly see the guide below under to fix use.
As you see now "Not secure" is only on forms In July 2018 all non-https sites in Google Chrome will show up as "Not secure.” This warning will show for all HTTP websites. That will cost someone in Law a lot.
See photo 1 will be in July 2018 & photo 2 sometime after. 3 is google
- https://i.imgur.com/wYMb88P.png
- https://i.imgur.com/ZVeyTuy.png
- https://i.imgur.com/HVsVKAO.png
- SEE https://transparencyreport.google.com/https/overview
To Fix this use
- https://www.aleydasolis.com/en/search-engine-optimization/http-https-migration-checklist-google-docs/
- https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1XB26X_wFoBBlQEqecj7HB79hQ7DTLIPo97SS5irwsK8/edit#gid=1975121463
- https://www.semrush.com/blog/http-to-https-a-complete-guide-to-securing-your-website-semrushchat/
- tools to know it worked.
- Moz crawler
- https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/
- https://deepcrawl.com
- SEMrush
Google’s announcement was firm about their goal to warn users of insecure sites, with the intent of further shepherding more web publishers into upgrading to HTTPS.
“Chrome’s new interface will help users understand that all HTTP sites are not secure, and continue to move the web towards a secure HTTPS web by default.”
Cite: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-sets-https-deadline/236225/
- https://www.searchenginejournal.com/how-https-works/220347/
- https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-is-requiring-https-for-secure-data-in-chrome/183756/
Hope this helps,
Tom
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Personally, I believe that making a site https is something that majority of the sites in the world should do. Google gives a slight ranking boost and slowly customers are trusting https sites more, with Google transitioning to "not secure" then it makes it even more of a reason to do so.
In majority of cases, https is quite a simple process if you're using a common cms. Just check that all of the scripts are functional and redirects are in place, once you've done that submit the sitemap and wait for Google to recrawl your site.
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