Google Chrome HTTPS Update – How will this affect your SEO rankings?

It’s that time when Google makes new announcements for their SERP / Search algorithm – basically, changing the way they choose who to rank and how high (or low), which will affect your SEO rankings.

In October 2017, Google will push forward on improving the security of websites and online user data bases by announcing an HTTP security change for Google Chrome. While its Chrome specifically – Don’t ignore this; It will affect over 60% of users in the marketplace (Ref: https://www.w3counter.com/globalstats.php?year=2017&month=06) and have a huge impact on the generation of search results.

The HTTPS Google Chrome update is designed to target both online users and website owners by changing their behaviour, and by highlighting HTTP websites that are “Non-secure”. This will be visible both in normal and incognito viewing modes on Chrome browsers so websites without SSL will clearly show visitors they are “Not Secure”.

Pro Tip – When Google announces something big like this in your search console or webmaster tools, make sure you or your agency are across it, listen and act. Here’s a screenshot below of a recent announcement from Google:

It doesn’t matter whether you have an e-commerce website or not, this is relevant to all websites.

For the past 2 years Google has given small ranking boosts to anyone migrating towards HTTPS, however this has now become a must do in the light of the forthcoming Google Algorithm Update. Like hundreds of other best practice recommendations the importance of changing to a secure domain is to get a boost in your SEO rankings.

You may be asking yourself – why does Google prefer HTTPS over HTTP? The simple reason is that Google is making a greater push for websites to switch to HTTPS – because it will protect their users and it will help them deliver a more secure browsing experience.

What to do next / How can we assist?

Placing an SSL certificate on your website to ensure that your domain is classified as HTTPs and secure. This will help secure your existing SEO rankings and you’ll stay ahead of the likely algorithm boosts for SSL.

T0 get ahead of the game, improve you SEO – (and not fall behind) – Contact us today to assist and check where else you can boost your organic results.