These days Chrome web browser plays a much more important role in Google search engine development. Chrome collects data about the websites visited, keeps track of how much time you have spent in there as well as clicks, scroll and so on. Eventually, all the collected data is used to improve search engine algorithms and provide the best search results.
A few weeks ago as we read the Google Blog article, about website speed impact on its search ranking position there comes a new one on secure web.
For the past several years, Google has been advocating HTTPS adoption and even reveals the perks HTTPS sites get over HTTP in search ranking position. During this time, lots of webmasters have already secured their websites with HTTPS. For those who are still running their websites on the unsecure HTTP there is still a chance to save their money and traffic switching on HTTPS before the beginning of July, 2018.
Since July 2018, with the release of Chrome 68, all HTTP websites will be labeled as Not Secure. No doubt, many visitors would distrust your website and never come back again.
Though, HTTPS still does not protect you from:
1. Encryption. All data will be protected from cybercriminals and hackers. Nobody can intercept the traffic between you and the website that you visited, the data you requested and pages you viewed.
2. Data security. The hackers will not be able to modify, add or delete information during the transfer of data packets (e.g when you visit the website on HTTP, somebody could replace it with another one).
3. Authentication. Confirms the data transmission between the user and the requested website and prevents the man-in-the-middle attacks.
4. Google Trust. In its article HTTPS as a ranking signal Google noticed that website encryption counts in search ranking algorithms. For now it will influence search rankings just a little but probably will grow with time.
One should consider the way Google encourages moving towards the secure web (using https as a ranking signal and so on). The company tends to protect the safety and integrity of every user. In the near future, all of the websites will switch over to HTTPS, it's only a matter of time.
If you are unsure you can handle HTTPS switch on your own, we recommend to contact your web hosting provider to make HTTPS adoption safe and smooth. But, if you still need to do it yourself, use our step-by-step tutorial to switch sites on HTTPS without traffic loss. Anyway, Hostiserver team is ready to help you out.