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If your website isn’t running on HTTPS yet, you should stop what you’re doing – make a plan and switch to HTTPS. If you don’t you’ll lose rankings.

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Google is forcing you to switch to HTTPS by October or lose rankings

HTTPS is something that Google has pushed gently since 2014 and they incentivised early adopters of HTTPS. However, Google have turned up the pressure to make sites switch to HTTPS. Having HTTPS earns you the ‘Secure’ padlock. Also, it helps you secure your website and rank better on the search results pages (SERPS).

Websites using HTTPS are starting to occupy the first page of Google.

So, what is HTTPS?

Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) is the secure version of HTTP. This is the protocol over which data is sent between your browser and the website that you are connected to. The ‘S’ at the end of HTTPS stands for ‘Secure’. In other words, all communications between your browser and the website are encrypted. HTTPS is used to protect transactions like online banking and online shopping order forms.

When you connect to an HTTPS site, web browsers such as Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Edge and Internet Explorer display an icon to show the site is secure. That little padlock icon in the address bar visually indicates that a HTTPS connection is in effect.

Look at your browser bar, and you’ll see the green padlock showing that this (and all other) pages on Zesty Lemon are served over a secure connection.

Switch to HTTPS by October or lose rankings

Last month Google Search Console sent out emails to Search Console users. The email was to inform website owners that is they have a non-HTTPS website, then they should adopt HTTPS before October or risk losing traffic and have a “NOT SECURE” notification pop-up on your website for Chrome users.

This is part of Google’s long-term plan to mark all HTTP sites as non-secure. The warning will become more prominent as time goes on. “Eventually, we plan to label all HTTP pages as non-secure, and change the HTTP security indicator to the red triangle that we use for broken HTTPS” Chrome Security Team Emily Schechter said.

HTTPS is something of a trust factor for users. When they know that the website they’re visiting is running on HTTPS, they can breathe easy. They can trust that security is one of that website’s priorities. We feel the same about this.

In our opinion, you should adopt HTTPS as soon as possible. Not only will you be ahead of the game, you will also be able to adjust to the changes before everyone else can.

Your next steps – switch to HTTPS

If your website isn’t running on HTTPS yet, stop what you’re doing and make a plan to switch to it.

Our Website Performance Optimisation service will migrate your website to HTTPS, turbo charge your page load times and boost your security. Ultimately, all of this will lead to more happy visitors and better ranking in search.

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Want to switch your website to HTTPS?

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