Would adding an SSL certificate help my website?
-
SSL certificates can obviously be a used as a ranking factor by Google, but would a site with no need for an SSL certificate notice a gain by adding one?
Is it possible to demonstrate you have an SSL certificate without having some https pages on your site?
-
Google just stated that SSL does have a (small) beneficial effect on SEO. It's official! Don't expect too much of it, though. It's only one ranking factor out of 200+.
-
It all comes back to the rule of focusing your website around users, not search engines. If an SSL certificate is not required for your user experience, then don't use one. Otherwise you'd be doing exactly what Google doesn't want you to do: making a move for the sole purpose of gaining search engine rankings.
-
I would be hard pressed to believe it would have a noticeable effect if any at all. A SSL does give credence that the site owners are actively trying to protect user information, but simply installing one for the sake of rankings seems like a waste.
A side note about sites that have ssl's.. generally a site with an ssl will use robots.txt to prevent certain pages from being crawled like the login or account info pages since these pages have no relevance to search engines. One could make an argument if you have such pages and allow bots to crawl them, in theory they could recognize that you're asking for information and not protecting it. Just a thought, but I do stand behind my original paragraph.
Hope that helps
-
I've not heard of an SSL certificate being used as a ranking factor by Google. If that's true, I'd like to know more.
Your intent here is disingenuous. Secure socket layers are meant to provide users a layer of protection for whatever services they are using on the site.
Displaying a SSL seal without actually doing so is deceitful to users and should not be condoned.
If your site does not need an SSL, your SEO efforts should be focused elsewhere.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Http urls on a new https website
Hi, If a site is quite new and setup as https from the beginning why would http variations exist? There are 301 redirects in place from the http to the https variation and also canonical tags pointing back to the http variation? This seems contradictory to me. I'm not sure why the http variations exist at all but they have gone to the trouble of redirecting these to the https variation indicating that it is the variation of choice but at the same time using a canonical tag that indicates the http variation is the original/main url? Thanks
Technical SEO | | MVIreland0 -
Website dropping in ranking
Hello My website is www.invitationsforless.ie and on google Ireland it was ranking no 6 for the keyword "wedding invitations" and I was doing quite well from this but it has now has moved down along the rankings to no 10 and I have gone from the first page on google to the second page which is very disappointing. I did recently change the blurb on my homepage - would this have effected it. Please help I don't know what to do Thanks Linda
Technical SEO | | invitationsforless0 -
Duplicate content. Wordpress and Website
Hi All, Will Google punish me for having duplicate blog posts on my website's blog and wordpress? Thanks
Technical SEO | | Mike.NW0 -
Over 700+ duplicate content pages -- help!
I just signed up for SEO Moz pro for my site. The initial report came back with over 700+ duplicate content pages. My problem is that while I can see why some of the content is duplicated on some of the pages I have no idea why it's coming back as duplicated. Is there a tutorial for a novie on how to read the duplicate content report and what steps to take? It's an e-commerce website and there is some repetitive content on all the product pages like our "satisfaction guaranteed" text and the fabric material... and not much other text. There's not a unique product description because an image speaks for itself. Could this be causing the problem? I have lots of URLs with over 50+ duplicates. Thx for any help.
Technical SEO | | Santaur0 -
Multi Language websites!
Hello, What is the best way for a website to have more languages? For example www.site.com is in english BUT the content will be translated in other 4 languages .es .it .fr .de . Should i buy 4 diferent domains www.site1.es www.site2.it etc... or create folders like site.com/es/ site.com/it etc OR create subdomains es.site.com Few months ago i was 100% sure..to go and buy diferent domains then to create diferent content on that languages..but now..i am not so sure. Thank you very much for your help!
Technical SEO | | willyg0 -
New to rich snippets, help needed
Hi, I have an online store selling mens business attire in Australia. I have had my developers add the required code to allow rich snippets. You can see the result here http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets?url=http%3A%2F%2Fjsshirts.com.au%2Fmens-business-shirts%2Fclassic-fit%2Fsky-blue-poplin-classic-fit-shirt.html&view=cse I have few questions 1.How can I change the product description? Is it possible to use the product Meta Tag as the description? 2.Under the stars and the review count is this text. The excerpt from the page will show up here. The reason we can't show text from your webpage is because the text depends on the query the user types. Should whateever product description I have used show up here? 3.Is there anything else I need to do to get SERP's to show the snippet? Many thanks for any answers, Jason
Technical SEO | | mullsey0 -
Help With Joomla Duplicate Content
Need another set of eyes on my site from someone with Joomla experience. I'm running Joomla 2.5 (latest version) and SEOmoz is giving my duplicate content errors on a lot of my pages. I checked my sitemap, I checked my menus, and I checked my links, and I can't figure out how SEOmoz is finding the alternate paths to my content. Home page is: http://www.vipfishingcharters.com/ There's only one menu at the top. Take the first link "Dania Beach" under fishing charters for example. This generates the SEF url: http://www.vipfishingcharters.com/fishing-charters/broward-county/dania-beach-fishing-charters-and-fishing-boats.html Somehow SEOmoz (and presumably all other robots) are finding duplicate content at: http://www.vipfishingcharters.com/broward-county/dania-beach-fishing-charters-and-fishing-boats.html SEOmoz says the referrer is the homepage/root. The first URL is constructed using the menu aliases. The second one is constructed using the Joomla category and article alias. Where is it getting this and how can I stop it? <colgroup><col width="601"></colgroup>
Technical SEO | | NoahC0 -
Looking to hire someone to help on my website. On page issues with subpages outranking homepage
Hello, I have a site that has been doing good for quite a while now. But lately I'm running into issues with on page seo. I have ranked well for long periods of time, but changes like adding content or moving stuff around has bumped me out of the rankings. I would prefer not to publicly disclose the site. My main keyword I rank for is "word1 word2". I notice if I do a site: search for "word1 word2" homepage is #1, site search for just word1 it's #1 as well, but the word2 returns a category listing above the homepage. I noticed this happen right as I fell back from the rankings. I am looking to hire an SEO profession to help me out with on page issues. I've come to admit that I just don't understand something about this and I need help from someone who has a lot of experience with this. I was hoping to find recommendations by people here for a company I could hire for this. I would want to pay no more than $1,000. I hope that budget is high enough to get a skilled individual/company working with me. I'm not sure where to search for online to get a skilled on page seo professional, so I thought a personal recommendation from someone here would possibly be able to help. Thanks
Technical SEO | | nux0