Google Announcements – Switching Between HTTP and HTTPS
Google has announced a big update secretly that going from HTTP and HTTPS will give you a minor rank boost. Google says that your site will get a small ranking benefit within whole ranking algorithm. Based on number of researches and tests, Google says that this minor change has an impact on “less than 1% of all the global queries” but it is not clear that whether they may or may not decide to strengthen the rank signal because they want to boost all the site owners to switch from protocol HTTP to HTTPS to keep everyone safe on the web.
Google has launched the update after number of tests showing beneficial results in regards to ranking and relevancy in search engine results. Google results has gone through many tests for the past few months, the HTTPS signal showed “positive results” in terms of relevancy and ranking in search results.
Answer to the Query : “How do I go about moving to the new HTTPS URLs on Google webmaster tools?
Do I just submit a updated sitemap which has the HTTPS URLs or do I add a new site as https://www.example.com and submit the sitemap with HTTPS URLs? All current URLs are set to redirect to their HTTPS counterparts.”
Sitemap is a file written in XML language, usually made for Google bots to help in crawling the website. This helps them to intelligently navigate through one point to another. Sitemap help Google through Google Webmaster in getting thorough information. The sitemap actually displays the summary of site and allows you to test individual link from the eyes of Google Bots. Whenever you are moving from HTTP to HTTPS, you may think of not submitting the URLs but it is essential because sitemap contains all the URLs, so they need to be updated with protocol HTTPS.
Now, the Question is what you need to do when you already have SSL?
I am seeing this question almost everywhere after the update that whether any kind of changes needed for those sites that already has SSL certification. E-commerce and top manufacturing companies always have HTTPS certification on their check out forms. The answer for this query is Yes.
The reason being is typically the SSL is made available on checkout and payment forms and not on all the product pages. The Google update HTTPs certification will be applied to whole domain, all the files, products, contact page, form page and the product pages.
Does it take time?
Yes, it does. You need to test and re-test to make sure that that users do not get HTTPS certification error every time they navigate through your website.
Is there any negative side to go for SSL?
There are numerous Google updates that if you switch your website properly, then there will be no downside. Along with the update, Matt Cutt has said through a tweet that there is no downside of moving to HTTPS and there will be no rank degrade because of the particular SSL certification. I am listing down few key points on taking HTTPS certification in a right manner:
- Decide what kind of certification needed i.e. single, wildcard or multi-domain.
- Must use 2048-bit key certificates.
- Use relevant URLs on same domain.
- Never block your HTTPS site from crawling using Robots.txt
What is SEO Reaction to going for SSL?
So, what are the reviews of the SEO specialist about going for SSL certification? Well personally, I think there will be a little downgrade in rankings but it is just a beginning and saying anything about it will be too earlier. Testing phase is on heights and I recommend to wait for a while to know what we can expect from it. SSL certification is not very expensive although it truly depends upon what types of certification you take e.g. single, multi-domain or wildcard.
