Anyone have experience with using HTTPS compared to HTTP and how it could affect rankings?
-
Are there any negative or positive effects of using https over http when it comes to rankings?
-
If you have users register for anything (like comments for example) then I would use https, or any kind of ecommerce.
Other than that, I don't think you pick up an advantage.
-
https is slower, as it encrypts your data, and has to be decrypted at the other end. if you have no reason to use it, then just use http
-
Mike's right - Matt Cutts is a huge HTTPS fan but there are no direct benefits yet. If both versions of the site are available, you need to make a decision about which one you want to use and stick with it, either redirecting the other or pointing to the preferred version with a canonical tag.
We used to say that only pages requiring secure connections (payment pages, or pages where other sensitive information is passed) should be secure, but since Google can clearly handle these pages and some high-ranking people within the search team prefer them, I'd say you're definitely safe to use them if you want to.
-
At this point, no - there are not positive or negative effects you'd need to worry about.
If you are wanting to switch from one to the other, you will want to make sure you you have the proper redirects/canonical tags in place.
One way to choose which option is best for your situation would be to check your analytics and see which site is getting more traffic (if both the http and https versions of your site are accessible).
Matt Cutts did make a comment earlier this year that he personally would want to give a boost to secure sites - but that is not currently in place.
Depending on your audience https may be more appropriate. For instance, if you Google "banking" - you can see both http and https websites ranking - savvy users will probably notice the secure sites and visit those. I guess it all depends on your industry and your audience though.
Hope this helps.
Mike
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Huge ranking flux that we cannot explain
Hello, SEO experts from around the world. We need your help; we have seen massive ranking flux across our website and others. We cannot explain what is causing this ranking flux. The content marketing is top quality, so we don’t know why we are moving from 25 to 50th on Google and sometimes even beyond that. Can any SEO experts explain why our agency is moving so much within Google’s rankings? We don’t know whether to make changes or possibly wait. Any help would be fantastic; thank you all.
Algorithm Updates | | sarahwalsh0 -
By Using interstitial (popups) on the webiste, will google penalize ranks for desktop and mobile both ?
We have implemented interstitials (pop-ups) on a website (Business Articles Website). The popups are basically used for getting leads from the website (using Signup popups). Before Popup implementation the traffic was steady, After the implementation, the traffic started to decay after a couple of weeks and due to the drop we disabled the popup from the website and initiated a force crawl and within next few weeks, we observed traffic gaining back to its normal trend. Within these timelines drop in desktop traffic was more and mobile traffic remain steady. As per Google guidelines, interstitials are more likely to be affected on mobile than desktop. But in our case, desktop traffic was hit more than mobile. So we carried out this experiment for 3 months. And we observed traffic decay and regain. Is interstitials the only culprit here (as the drop is only in desktop) or Can there be some other reasons as well for the traffic drop? bF7hc
Algorithm Updates | | iQuanti1 -
Can I use schema markup for my Trustpilot results?
Hi we have excellent Trustpilot reviews & want to know if we can include these in schema markup in order for the results to show in SERPs? The Trustpilot results show in PPC but not SERPs. A competitor looks to have no Trustpilot or other independent reviews but is showing 5 stars in SERPs, i also cant find any customer reviews on their site, it looks to be just coding that is driving the SERPs view? Their site is goldencharter.co.uk Any thoughts much appreciated Thanks Ash
Algorithm Updates | | AshShep11 -
Did anyone else get a massive drop off in Bing recently?
Only for one set of my keywords. But I fell from first page to off the map in one fell swoop. Did this happen to anyone else? Should I be worried?
Algorithm Updates | | CleanEdisonInc0 -
How do I rank higher in Bing/Yahoo?
We are doing really well across the board on Google, but having issues in ranking with Bing and Yahoo. What is different between the three search engines? I have read a few articles that Bing is happier with Flash, and they are more interested in Top Level Domain links, but what else is different? In Google we are sitting on page one for most terms, but are page 2-3 in Bing/Yahoo for the exact same terms. Any help would be appreciated!
Algorithm Updates | | FVdBeuken0 -
Webpage is ranking on google.ie / google.co.uk but not google.com?
One of our site webpage appears to be found in the first few pages on google.ie / google.co.uk but not on google.com. Is there such a thing being penalised on a specific Google domain? Traffic is healthy despite this but I want to rank well for the page in google.com. Any ideas?
Algorithm Updates | | notnem0 -
Issue: Having to Fight Product Marketing to Use Keywords
This is sort of a "DUH!" moment to me. I know everyone has come across this at some point in time and am interested in hearing how others deal with this. A little background: I was researching keywords for new menus and pages. Sometimes, people (product marketing in my case) do not give me a heads up on changes they want to make to pages and it is always a fight with them to change it. This is pretty normal for me and I am use to it. It is one of those things that they don't want to discuss it with you because they know you are going to critique their work. and, yes, change it for the good of the company. I had a co-worker say to me:
Algorithm Updates | | SmartBear
"We may have to start making [pages] meaningful to the human visitor than satify the bot army". My response was:
"What better way to make it [web page] meaningful to users by knowing which terms they search on the most in our industry? Keyword research is not just for Search Engines, it is actual live data as to what most people are searching. That is why I put such a high precedence on it and report on trends. You can bet that if 100,000 people are searching for [keyword], that is what they want to see when they search for it." Anyways, that is how I handled this particular event. I have several responses when these comments pop up from time to time. Usually it is something to the fact that they are not the ones who will get fired if leads drop via organic search, so we better try this. But today, I was feeling kind of spunky and decided to take another route. What are some of your responses to these types of remarks? Hopefully this will make for a good discussion.0 -
Why have I lost rankings for my top 10+ keywords
Hello, As of 04/24/11 I have lost rankings for my top 10+ keywords in an extremely competitive market. I was ranking on page 1 in Google for keywords like: iphone app reviews, ipad app reviews, iphone app videos, ipad app videos, and more. Since 04/24 I have fallen off the first 10 pages + in Google for all major keyword & keyword terms. I have identified that I have 1,359 articles from prmac, which contain links to customers who published press releases through prmac. We are in the process of removing these pages, but creating a list of urls to prove to Google the possibly offending blog posts are gone. Beyond that I am not sure what else to do, please help. URL: http://www.crazymikesapps.com. thank you Mike
Algorithm Updates | | crazymikesapps0