HTTP vs HTTPS

[Essential-Pest]

What are the pros and cons of each? Looking for more information about this.

Thank you ahead of time.

[Shakur]

Hi there,

One of the most important reasons is:

Google Starts Giving A Ranking Boost To Secure HTTPS/SSL Sites

Google has announced that going HTTPS — adding a SSL 2048-bit key certificate on your site — will give you a minor ranking boost.

Google says this gives websites a small ranking benefit, only counting as a “very lightweight signal” within the overall ranking algorithm. In fact, Google said this carries “less weight than other signals such as high-quality content.” Based on their tests, Google says it has an impact on “fewer than 1% of global queries” but said they “may decide to strengthen” the signal because they want to “encourage all website owners to switch from HTTP to HTTPS to keep everyone safe on the web.”

You can find more about The Big List of SEO Tips and Tricks for Using HTTPS on Your Website: http://moz.com/blog/seo-tips-https-ssl

[customerparadigm.com]

Here's my quick thoughts on this:

http:

Pro:

• Quick, fast and easy
• No SSL fees
• Super fast
• Most content pages don't really need to be encrypted

Cons:

• Anyone snooping on your connection at a coffee shop can see what you're seeing.
• NSA can read what you're doing

https:

Pro:

• Nobody will be able to see that you're reading a blog post about how to cure your herpes.
• Google was pissed off at the NSA, and is now using sites that have SSL as a ranking signal (but it's not a silver bullet). Here's an article I wrote about that: http://www.customerparadigm.com/google-boosting-ssl-encrypted-sites-in-their-search-results/
• Done right, it's nearly as fast as non-secure pages

Cons:

• It's expensive to buy an SSL certificate (although there may be a non-profit starting next year that will give them away for free)
• It's a pain to generate keys, install intermediate certificates.
• It sucks when your SSL certificate expires on your site, even if you're not using it anymore (Google will show a big error to many users: http://www.customerparadigm.com/how-an-expired-ssl-certificate-can-drive-traffic-away-even-if-youre-not-using-it/)
• It can be slower, because of the math required to encrypt and decrypt information.
• You have to be better at coding sites, because if you have things like non-secure images, css or other resources on your secure page, it will throw an error.

Hope that helps...
-- Jeff