{"id":114733,"date":"2016-11-14T20:31:00","date_gmt":"2016-11-15T01:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dacgroup.com\/switching-to-https-and-why-its-important\/"},"modified":"2024-12-23T00:36:59","modified_gmt":"2024-12-23T05:36:59","slug":"switching-to-https-and-why-its-important","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dacgroup.com\/en-gb\/insights\/blog\/strategy\/switching-to-https-and-why-its-important\/","title":{"rendered":"Switching to HTTPS (and Why It\u2019s Important)"},"content":{"rendered":"

As you arrived on the site today, you probably\u00a0noticed that you were redirected to a secure url and were presented with a wee padlock next to the url. That’s right: the DAC site is now fully HTTPS compliant! . . . But what does that mean? I’m glad you asked. Basically, it means that when people visit our website, the data sent to our server and back is encrypted in between. On the old HTTP-only site, someone could potentially get in the middle of that process and read the stuff being passed between the browser and the server. Now they can’t. It’s not just us. You’ll see lots of sites switching to HTTPS lately. So why now? And more importantly, what do you need to know for your own site? <\/p>\n

Switching to HTTPS<\/h3>\n

Think back to when you would pass a note across the room in primary school.\u00a0Your HTTP\u00a0note can be opened by anybody in the note-passing chain, and they’ll know exactly what you’re sending. An HTTPS\u00a0note can be understood only by the final recipient (as they have the key). Anyone else in the chain will see encrypted nonsense if they open it for a look. So should you switch to HTTPS\u00a0now? For our site, there are 2 main benefits. The first is from a search perspective: Google mentioned back in 2014 that they were rewarding sites that use HTTPS with higher search visibility. Although we don’t accept payment details or have external logins, it’s very\u00a0important for eCommerce sites\u00a0or businesses holding sensitive data to use SSL certificates. And for us, at least we can be confident that no one is able to tamper with our staff photos. \"This<\/a> Quoth Google:<\/p>\n

\u201cHTTPS sites receive a small ranking boost, but don’t expect a visible change. Google uses HTTPS as a positive ranking signal. This signal is one amongst many others, and currently carries less weight than high-quality site content; you should not expect a major SEO advantage for moving to HTTPS in the short term. In the longer term, Google may increase the strength of the HTTPS boost.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The \u201cshould not expect a major SEO advantage\u201d line was the main reason we didn\u2019t make the migration to SSL a priority. Anecdotally, we’ve seen little evidence of tangible visibility benefits in search engine results pages, plus we\u2019re typically pretty busy working on client sites in the SEO team. Sometimes need a kick to remember to spend time on the DAC site!<\/p>\n

Google’s Plans for Non-HTTPS Sites<\/h3>\n

The kick, and the second reason for migrating, is related to Google\u2019s long-term plans for Chrome: in January this year, they\u2019ll start warning Chrome users when they arrive on a non-HTTPS page that collects passwords or credit cards that the page is “non-secure.” This is the first stage of a \u201clong-term plan to mark all HTTP sites as non-secure\u201d. \"The<\/a> It doesn\u2019t take a UX specialist to figure out that a big red warning shouting \u201cNot Secure\u201d at the top of your site might<\/em> impact your conversions and damage your brand. So, we set aside some time to get it implemented. And now a bit of tech: we\u2019re using a free SSL from LetsEncrypt (a non-profit backed by some of the internet\u2019s big boys). It\u2019s bang up to date, with strong encryption tech and is set to auto renew. It was relatively straightforward to implement (compared to battling with Plesk to generate encryption keys via 3rd party providers, it was a walk in the park). We would recommend for sites like ours. For eCommerce and data-sensitive sites, however, consider extended validation certificates. But for non-transactionl\/informational sites, it does the job very well.<\/p>\n

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